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Bhaga Vad-Gita

Bhaga Vad-Gita

THE HISTORICAL GAME-CHANGES IN THE OF DEVOTION AND CASTE AS USED AND MISUSED BY THE VAD-GITA

BY - ,<" DR. THILAGAVATHI CHANDULAL BA, MBBS (Madras), MRCOG, FRCOG (UK), MDiv. (Can)

TOWARDS THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF

MA IN PHILOSOPHY

TO

THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES BROCK UNIVERSITY ST. CATHARINES, ONTARIO, CANADA, L2S 2Al

© 5 JANUARY 2011 11

THREE EPIGRAPHS ON THE ATHLETE OF THE SPffiIT

Majority of us are born, eddy around, die only to glut the grave. Some - begin the quest, 'eddy around, but at the first difficulty, getting frightened, regress to the non-quest inertia. A few set out, but a very small number make it to the mountain top.

Mathew Arnold, Rugby Chapel

Among thousands of men scarcely one strives for perfection, and even among these who strive and succeed, scarcely one knows Me in .

The Bhagavad-Gita 7. 3

Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one.

St. Paul, First Letter to the Corinthian Church, 9.24-25 111

Acknowledging my goodly, heritage

Father, Savarimuthu's world-class expertise in Theology: Christian, Lutheran and Hindu

Mother, Annapooranam, who exemplified Christian and nlJrtured me in it ~ Aunt, Kamalam, who founded and in me in my pre-teen years

Daughter, Rachel, who has always been supportive of my education

Grandchildren, Charisa and Chara, who and admire me

All my teachers all my years iv

CONTENTS Abstract v Preface VI Tables, Lists, Abbreviations IX Introduction to bhakti X Chronological Table XVI of bhakti (), Grace (English), Anbu (Tamil), Agape (Greek) XVll Origin and Growth of bhakti xx Agape (love) XXI Chapter 1: Game-Changes in bhakti History: 1 Vedic devotion Upanishadic devotion and bhakti The Epics and bhakti The Origin of bhakti . The Tamil Chapter 2: The Use of the Gita: bhakti: 17 List of Grace/bhakti verses in the Gita and Gita Chapter Eleven: Divine Vision: The climax of bhakti The Idea of bhakti in the Gita The Analytic of bhakti: Bhakti and Bhakti andjnana Bhakti prioritized over and Karma Bhakti and surrender Supreme bhakti . Love between Isvara (God) and the human being God's love and surrender to his bhakta Liberation (Advaitin) and Salvation (Theistic) Conclusion Chapter 3: Ancient and Modern Commentators of the Gita: 78 Sankara Tilak Chapter 4: Critiques on Bhakti in the Gita: 110 .Appasamy: Contradictions Stephen: Neill: bhakti in South Zaehner: , the Advaitins Zimmer: the Hypothesis Chapter 5: Misuse of the Gita: the Caste System 126 Conclusion 139 Bibliography 151 Appendix: My Presentation of the Oral Defence 155 Index 162 v

Abstract

This thesis considers that the purport of the Bhagavadgita is to prioritize the

philosophy of loving devotion to God (bhakti), not the propagation of color-coded-caste

( system). The distinction between bhakti and caste becomes clear when one sees

their effect on human life and on the society. Jnana and karma, two of the other

polarities with which the Gita contends, finally support bhakti towards betterment, not

deterioration, if done selflessly and with balance. Caste, however, is a totally different

tension, which is always detrimental to the well-being of the person and the society.

In the Gita, the devotees' mystical or emotional love of God apprehends their ,

~ oneness with the Supreme God and with all beings, and transcends the pitiless

segregation of the caste system, and opens the path of salvation to all irrespective of race,

color, caste, class or gender in life. In spite of much opposition from orthodoxy, the

bhakti movement spread allover India, and bhakti itself rose to the level of orthodoxy

and has become the of millions of people especially of the south, and surprisingly,

of even of those of the so called highest caste.

And yet, caste still remains as an indelible mark of every Hindu, even after they

change their . Although caste is less venomous now, it is still openly present in

all walks of Indian life and shows up its ugly head at important moments such as

, elections for public office, admission to school or employment.

True, bhakti is the antidote for. caste; but only real bhakti can remove caste

completely, not mere lip-service to it. This thesis claims that bhakti is the deliberate

major thrust of the teaching of the Gita while caste seems to be a contradiction of this

thrust. vi

Preface

This paper examines bhakti and varna (caste) system that the Bhagavad-Gita disseminates, as both have caused monumental Game-Changes in the socio-religious settings of the Indian society as a whole from ancient . As in a game of chess, here in the Gita too, the locus of power changes with every move of each player. The Gita' s technique is a progressive display of changes in the metaphysical and historical playing field of India, in which exclusive jnana and egalitarian bhakti have a power-play for priority, in which bhakti establishes its genuine superiority gradually while repressive varna seems to contradict the validity of the moral philosophy of the Gita.

~ The paper discusses this issue conscious of my own historical approach of search for the truth in the Gita, and sensitive of the approach of the faith of the practicing modern

Hindu reader according to their personal realization, religious denomination or dogma.

The Gita, as a literary phenomenon, has a meaning and a purpose in its own right. As interpreters of the Gita challenge each other's claims to opposite extremes, l this thesis re- examines the topic of bhakti directly from the text of the Bhagavad-Gita itself as a document of its , before considering what a later commentator, such as Sankara or

Ramanuja, teaches about the Gita or how a later Advaitin or a neutral historian interprets

Sankara or Ramanuja.

I , The Role of the '' in the understanding of the Bhagavadgita, in Religious Studies 14, no. 2 (June, 1978): 261-267. The Anugita or "The Recapitulation ofthe Gita" is a part of the Epic . Sharma notes that all the devotional elements of the Gita are missing in the Anugita because of its decidedly "Gnostic" character. As such, he concludes that the Anugita' s importance for the interpretation of the Gita seems questionable as it does not take seriously the differences that are central in the Gita' s teaching. Thus the "Anugita," one of the first interpretations of the Gita available to us, is devoid of all the devotional elements, which are central to the Gita. R. C. Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, (Oxford: , 1973),7. Zaehner too confirms that the Anugita omits all the teaching in the Gita of as being "most mysterious"-the of the love of God. Krishna is not the teacher in the didactic chapters (12, 13 and much of 3 and 5) of the Mahabharata. vii

While the body of the thesis is essentially historical-critical in , that is, strictly philosophical, one claim goes beyond this measure and that is basically my own personal assessment (not at all speculative), namely, that the Gita was redacted ov~r time and that the contradictions in the Gila between bhakti and varna is a consequence of these redactions (my claim). Some references regarding redactions are given in the footnotes 2

This paper has five chapters.

Chapter I gives the historical aspect of the Gita, with a table of chronology followed by the etymology of the Sanskrit word "bhakti," and its English, Tamil and Greek equivalents, and discusses the origin of bhakti in the , the Upanishads, the

Mahabharata, and the Tamil bhakti movement.

Chapter 2, the main body of the thesis, is structured a) to interpret all the verses in the

Gita containing the word "bhakti" or its equivalents, to see if the Gita develops an argument through them for and bhakti, b) a critical assessment on Chapter eleven of the Gita, considered to be the climax of the Gita, as it proclaims the 'New Revelation of God,' c) an analysis of the Gita' s four ways to God, karma, jnana, supreme bhakti, and supreme bhakti with surrender d) an examination of the aspects of love between the bhakta and God, and e) a comparison of the goals, liberation and salvation.

Chapter 3 investigates two ancient Indian interpreters who revolutionized the concepts of : Sankaracharya and Ramanujacharya; and two modern interpreters who interpreted it innovatively: Sri Lokamanya Bal-Gangadhar Tilak and .

2 Radhakrishnan, Bhagavadgita (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1963) 14 ... the text may have received many alterations in subsequent times. H. Zimmer, of India (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1967),380-81). A. J. Appasamy, Bhagavadgita in Gitasamiksha, Ed. E. R. Sreekrishnasarma (Tiruppati: Sri University Press, 1971), 12l. A. L. Basham, Wonder that was India (London: Picador, 2004), p 409-11. D. D. Kosambi, Social and Economic Aspects of the Bhagavadgita , Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 4. No.2 (Aug., 1961), pp. 204-5. viii

Chapter 4 examines the critiques of four modern interpreters of the Gita on bhakti in the Gita: two bishops, Appasamy and Neill, and two Professors, Zaehner and Zimmer

Chapter 5: This chapter argues that, in the Gita, how the upper-most caste uses the theory of the three gunas (innate attributes) to suppress the three castes below it, and exploit the casteless ethnic tribes and peoples of India, which is very much against the grains of the religion of bhakti, which the Gita itself advocates. ix

Tables, List, Abbreviations

Table 1: Chronology of the Vedas to Epic Times: x

Table 2: Bhakti verses in the Gita 20

List of Bhakti Verses: 23

Table 3: Caste Verses in the Rig Veda, the Gita and the Sastra 128

Abbreviations

CB: Chit-Bhavananda

R: Ramanuja

Rk: Radhakrishnan

S: Sankara,

Z: Zaehner n: notes

The Upanishads are denoted by their initial letters in the upper case,

their Chapters and sections in Roman numerals,

their Verses in Arabic numerals. x

Introduction to the subject, "bhakti"

Bhakti is the warp and the woof of popular today for it underlies and inspires popular worship.3 is close to bhakti, but Saivism is closer being imbued through and through with bhakti in every aspect of it. Albeit, the subject of bhakti has not yet received the attention of scholars it deserves. Besides, "Hinduism" is a non-Hindu label.

Considering the fact that we meet the best of Hinduism in its classical expression of bhakti, both in Sanskrit and Tamil, Dhavamony complains that even outstanding western

Indologists and also Indian scholars have failed to study it with 'qrre.4 They have either left it aside or treated it scantily. Even those who write about bhakti deal only with the

Gita or Vaishnavite bhakti. Perhaps, they feared that Siva-bhakti would be too terrible with its association of the fearful god, '' -Siva (wrathful-Siva) of the Vedas and the

Upanishads even though the meaning of the word 'Siva' is 'love' (anbu) and the understand this aspect of Siva.

The reason for this neglect of bhakti III India is attributed mainly to the rise of

"Vedantism," which champions the cause of the Advaita in order to suit the purpose of being a universal religion of sorts syncretising in itself all other . Neo-Vedantism accorded bhakti a lower status as something anthropomorphic and emotional, as pertaining to the -ridden world of duality and distinction. The advaitic experience of oneness with all beings was extolled above everything else. Though bhakti is

3 Father Mariasoosai Dhavamony, Love of God according to Saivasiddhanta: A Study in the Mysticism and Theology of Saivism, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 1. This book is dedicated to R. C. Zaehner who took a keen interest in this doctoral research work of Davamony's, which is a very first attempt of this kind by anyone to probe into the theology of Tamil Sai vism and its bhakti mysticism. This work is acknowledged by scholars as a classical reference text in this subject.

4 There is a new flow of bhakti literature since Dhavamony's statement, but more is needed on this subject. xi considered a cherished possession of the Hindu religion, it was explained as an emotional and imperfect form of it, something quite opposed to the classical tradition of Hinduism.5

It may be pointed out that since Brahmanism does not teach the doctrine of bhakti, the

European and American Sanskritists and Vedic scholars who translated the Vedas and philosophical Brahmanical texts have almost paid no attention to the bhakti literature.

Due to this neglect of bhakti, many westerners hold the one-sided view that Hinduism regards the world as an illusion, its central idea is non-dualism, and the innermost essence of man (atman or self) is identified with the changeless ultimate ground of all existence

(Atman or the Self). These scholars did not see the existence of the theistic current of

Hinduism which supplied the intellectual framework for the bhakti" religions, but thought rather that bhakti was of little consequence in the history of . Thus bhakti was suppressed deliberately by Brahmanism, and knowingly or unknowingly by its western interpreters. Even the modem west generally follows the tradition of its predecessors, limiting its microscopic vision to Sanskrit, Brahmanism and northern India.

This paper wishes to take them further afield.

Zaehner makes the statement, in line with Dhavamony, in the introduction to his own work, "The Bhagavad-Gita," by saying that, among mystics, there are two types: those who see love to be the central phenomenon in a mystical experience, and those who disregard love altogether. 6 The latter would only express themselves exclusively in terms of unity, the escape or 'liberation' from time, the phenomenal world, and all that conditions it. Very rarely do the two kinds of mysticism meet as they do in the Gila. The

5 Dhavamony, Love of God, 3. 6 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973),2-3: Here Zaehner cites his own work Sacred and Profane (Clarendon Press, 1957), where he shows these varieties of mysticism. xii

Gita demonstrates that the mystic experience of the love of a personal God is not merely the means and the goal of spiritual 'liberation' ( or mukti of the Upanishads or the vimutti of the Buddhists), but it is the grand experience of the soul of the love of God, without which the mystic relationship is incomplete.

Zaehner, as well as Dhavamony, state that the unique place of love in the relationship between God and the human being is missed by many modern commentators because they were conditioned by Sankara's authoritative Vedantic non-dualistic interpretation of the Gita. These commentators have ignored the commentary of the modified non-dualist

Vedanta of Ramanuja, the commentary of the 'dualist' Madhva,7, and the dogmatic texts

~ and the devotional songs of the Saivite saints, which, I think, are so much nearer to the spirit of the Gita.

In addition to the above, there is another reason for the neglect of the bhakti texts. The one-sided view of Brahmanical Hinduism declared that all vernacular languages of India, other than Sanskrit, were and still are generally underdeveloped (barbaric) and difficult to learn; that the south Indian language of Tamil, for example, in which most of the early important bhakti texts of the Nayanmars and were written, together with all the regional languages of India belonged to the inferior low-caste people, and therefore they are all inferior compared to the so-called divine noble Aryan language of Sanskrit.

Consequently, the of (roughly south of Bombay and

Calcutta) and the bhakti literature in those languages are still characterized as inferior.

The west, generally, did not venture to verify this proposition. Some noteworthy

7 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 3. xiii exceptions to this generalization are Dr. H. W. Schomerus,8 who translated the Saivite master-piece Tamil Tiruvacagam of Manikkavasagar into German and compared

Manikkavasagar to Meister Eckehart; Dr. G. U. Pope (Oxford), who translated the same

Tiruvacagam (1987) and a few other Tamil texts into English; and Father Constantine

Joseph Beschi of ltaly9 who wrote the "Thembavani" in Tamil epic style. Beschi enjoyed writing Tamil prose and poetry in nine other styles of . It is some consolation that Europeans are beginning to find out the truth about the Tamils, their language and culture which include the bhakti religion. 1O It should therefore be stressed that words such as 'bhakti,' 'grace' or 'love' are absent or rare in the great Sanskrit writings of the Advaitins and in the writings of modern Neo-Advaitins in any language.

The author of the Gita may be pictured as presenting his secret teaching to the graduating student . It is a common practice for the (teacher) to whisper a formula containing the essence of his teaching directly and secretly into the ear of each graduating student so that no one else would hear it. Thus the last verses (carama-sloka) of the last chapter of the Gita reveal the secret essential teaching of Krishna, the 'Gita-

Rahasya,' which is about God's love and devotion to his devotee: 'I love you deeply because you are dear to me; you love me, worship me and come to me for shelter from all ; 1 will deliver you' (18. 64-66). The loving personal God's assertion of his love to

8 H. W. Schomerus, De Hymnen Des Manikkavasaga (Leipzig: Lutheran Mission Press, 1923). His other book is Meister Eckehart und Manikkavasagar (Halle: Gutersloh, 1936).

9 Father Constantine Beschi, "Thembavani" (, India, 1726). Bezchi of Venice, , was a Catholic priest who dedicated his life to the service of Christ - for India and Tamil. He wrote Thembavani in 'epic style' on the early life of Christ from the point of view of Joseph, the guardian-father of Jesus. lOG. -neya Pa-vanar, the doyen of linguistics writes, "So long as the Westerners wander in the wilderness of Sanskrit, they will never find the path, even if they continue to do so for forty ages. If they come out of that labyrinth and search for the truth in Tamil, they will find it." XIV the beloved devotees is the most important promise to the bhaktas who depend on it for their release from samsara (cycles of lives) and for their final salvation.

However, the Advaitins and Neo-Advaitins explain away this caramasloka as a metaphysical, impersonal relationship between the macrocosmic Self of the Absolute and the microcosmic embodied self of the individua1.!! However, those Advaitins who follow

Ramanuja's Visishtadvaita philosophy believe in both, the impersonal Absolute as well as the personal God, - and His such as Krishna. The

Dualist Madhva did not concede to Advaita at all, but stood his grounds for the personal

God and the priority of bhakti. Nevertheless, the everyday reality is that most devotees do I

~ not care to know if there is One divinity or more, any distinction between personal and impersonal divine beings or the body and the spirit.

Further, in medieval times, as Vedic rituals and sacrifices were disappearing in the north due to the influence of and , priests were coming to the south seeking the patronage of the Dravidian Kings. Consequently, Tamil and Sanskrit languages were being mixed together into a pearl-coral (mani-pravalam) language. Since the magnificent epic, Mahabharata, with the Gita inside it, and the second grand epic

Ramayana had been translated into Tamil before the extant Tamil bhakti Sastras of the

Dravidians were finally collected, organized and canonized, a good deal of Sanskrit had entered into the Tamil texts. Therefore, the presence of Sanskrit words in these sacred

Tamil texts must not imply the origin of their content from Sanskrit: bhakti is authentically Dravidian.

11 Zaehner does not explain 'Gita Rahasya' in the caramasloka in his "Bhagavad-Gita." xv

Tamil Saivism is vast and different, based chiefly on its own Agamas: the fourteen doctrinal Sastras and the twelve devotional of the sixty-four Saivite saints. 12

Unlike Arjuna of the Gita, these Saivite saints are historical persons, and their sacred poetry is the outburst of their personal experiences expressed in thousands of verses which touch the hearts of the hearers and readers.

About the same time as, the Saivite Nayanmars, the Tamil Vaishnavite Alvars also sang their beautiful sacred bhakti songs, which are enshrined in the "Nalayira-Divya-

Prabhandam" (Compendium of Four-Thousand-Sacred Lyrics). These men and women

Nayanmars and Alvars made the whole of South India reverberate with their sacred , and are revered irrespective of their castes and classes in life as priests, kings, farmers, hunters, or untouchables.

Bhakti writings display all the three aspects of bhakti: i) God, the object of bhakti, ii) the devotee, bhakta, who God, and iii) the experience () of bhakti- relationship between God and the human being. The Saivite writings surpass the

Vaishnavite ones in being completely imbued with these three aspects and dripping with love. The doctrine of bhakti and its theistic mysticism finally propose a way for the attainment of spiritual liberation and union with God, which most people . 13,14

12 Dhavamony, Love of God, 4. 13 Dhavamony, Love of God, 7. 14 F. S. Janzow Ed. Large Catechism of Martin Luther, (St. Louis: Concordia, 1978),89. The Christian's love-relationship with Christ (God) also has all these three aspects of bhakti: God, the human being and the reciprocal relationship between the two, but with the difference, that God first loves unconditionally and the human being returns that love, however meager that may be. The mediator between the two is the of God who calls, gathers, enlightens, purifies and enables the beloved to yield fruit by God's grace. xvi

HISTORY: CHRONOLOGY

THE VEDIC, UPANISHADIC, BUDDHIST, JAINA and EPIC TIMES

1700 to 900 BCE: The Four Vedas

C. 1700-1500 Nomads in the region compose the Rig Veda. C.1200-900 The Vedic people compose the Yajur, Sarna and Atharva Vedas.

600 to 100 BCE: The Upanishads, the Buddha and Jaina

c.600-500 are composed ~ c.500 Shrauta are composed c 500-400 Early Upanishads: Brahadaranyaka, Chandogya, Kaushitaki c.500 Pataliputra founded, Vedic people gradually move southwards c. 483 or 410 dies at the age of about 80 c.468 Vardhamana Jaina dies (the twenty fourth Tirtankara) c.400-120 Katha , Kaushitaki, Svetasvatara and Mandukya Upanishads c.300-100 -sutras are composed

300-BCE to 232 CE: From the Twin-Epics and the Gita to Asoka

c. 300 BCE-300 CE The Mahabharata Epic composed with the Gita in it c. 200-BCE - 200 CE The Rarnayana Epic was composed c. 327-325 BCE Alexander invades North-west South Asia (326-India) c.324BCE Buddhist king begins his rule c. 265-232 BCE Buddhist Emperor Asoka rules 15

15 The Chronology is derived from Wendy Doniger O'flaherty, The Hindus: An Alternative History (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), 164, 199, 213. ( Hiriyanna, "Outlines of Indian History" (London: George Allen &Unwin Ltd.' 1964)13: "The only date that can be claimed to have been settled in the first one thousand years of Indian history, for example, is that of the death of the Buddha in 487 BCE." xvii

Etymology and use of the Sanskrit term 'bhakti' (Love) 16

The word Bhagavad comes from the same root, bhaj, as bhakti. In Hinduism,

Bhagavan is the gracious Lord of the bhakti cults. The idea of love is expressed by the root 'bhaj' , and its derivative is bhakti. The concept of love can be used for several manifestations of love, 1) possession or enjoyment, 2) preference and choice, 3) esteem and honor, 4) attachment and affection, 5) loyalty and devotion. Similarly bhaj also can have multiple meanings: to possess, enjoy, enjoy carnally, embrace; to favor, prefer, choose, and elect; to honor, worship, adore, revere, and esteem; to be attached to; to court; to be devoted to, to be loyal. Love can also be secular or religious.

~ As secular love, the Sanskrit word bhaj can be used for grace or devotedness such as faithfulness between equals, friends, spouses, between master and servant, king and subjects, and understood as love a) between parent and child, b) between sexes, c) between master and servant, and d) to guru As religious love, bhaj may be used for grace: a) respect and reverence, b) devotion (bhakti) in the worship of God, c) external worship of God, d) love (bhakti) of God, e) God's love for human beings.

Synonyms for bhakti in the Gita

The words, " priti", "sneha," "prema," "anugraha," "anurakti" or "ishtam" are also used in the Gita synonymously to express bhakti as emotional and passionate desire. The terms, "" (satisfaction), ''priti'' (gratification), "tarsa" (desire), (passion) sneha

(friendship) and anuraga (attachment), and words such as "nam-namra" (reverential

16 I am greatly indebted to Fr. Mariasoosai Dhavamony, S.l., for the analysis of the words and semantics of bhaj and bhakti in Sanskrit, Tamil, in Hinduism, especially in the and comparisons with Christianity in his "Love of God according to Saivasiddhanta: A Study in the Mysticism and Theology of Saivism," (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), which is the first classic of its kind in the subject of love in the Saiva-, which is a South Indian Hindu Text of dogma and doctrine in Saivism. xviii bow), "upacara" (respect), and "puj" (showing honor) are combined with bhakti to denote interpersonal relationship with God, the ultimate ground of worship in the Gita

In the Gita Bhakti is not developed to convey the full and deep doctrine of the mysticism of love, which we find in the later Hindu religious traditions of Saivism and

Vaishnavism. Our purpose in this paper is well served if it is proved that the term

"bhakti" implies a personal relationship and has been used in the religious context to signify loving devotion to God and love of God to human beings. 17

Comparison of the Sanskrit word "bhakti"and the Tamil word "anbu"

Tolkappiyar (C. 500BCE), the oldest Grammarian of Tamil, who may be dated at the same time as Panini, the Sanskrit Grammarian, defines the word, 'anbu' as the "love or attachment that creates a sense of mental satisfaction or pleasure in one's wife, parents or relatives, and that cements or binds them together." The word, "arui" is another superb

Tamil word equally widely used for God's 'gracious love.'

The word "Anbu" is the Tamil equivalent of the Sanskrit word "bhakti" used for love.

Both words have many shades of meaning, and both are used in the classical and in everyday life and writings, similar to the usage of the English word "love." The religious terms are very rich and complex; they have been influenced by the different currents of religious thought, meaning, and new force. Both bhakti and anbu have been accepted into the thoughts of Christianity and Islam too, with added flavor. 18

The Tamil Bhakti doctrine of Saivism has four margas (paths) between God and persons (sanmarga), between friends (sahamarga), between parent and child (satputra-

17 Dhavamony, Love of God, 20,77. 18 Dhavamony, Love of God, 24-31. xix

marga), between master and servant (-marga), and also relationships between

husband and wife (nayaka-nayaki), and between teacher and pupil (guru-sishya).19

In the Gita, the God of bhakti is gracious and compassionate towards all although he is especially benevolent to return the love of those who love him (4.11). Bhakti on man's

side is the loving response to God, on whom he acknowledges his utter dependence for gaining liberation from the cycle of . In the Gita's bhakti theology, liberation does not appear to be the outcome of yogic techniques or ritual practices but of God's grace and man's cooperation with it (10.10). It implies self-surrender of the devotee and God's own gift of himself (10.9). God is the darling of the devotees and the devotees are dear to him (12.13-20): God reveals the highest mystery of His love to the 'perfected devotee'

(18.65-66)?O 21

19 C. Singaravelan, The Theory and Practice of Bhakti in Nayanmars: the four Margas of Reaching God, in "The Philosophical Heritage of the Tamils," Ed.s. S. V. Subramanian, and R. Vijayalakshmi, (Madurai: International Institute of Tamil Studies, 1983), 151-165. Each of these four margas is practiced in these four ways, jnana; , kiriya and cariya, and they lead by the four stages to moksha, from saloka, samipa and sarupa to sayujya: as servant, child, friend and perfection. However, the non-dual Advaitin leader Dayananda Sarasvati, was opposed to these stages to moksha, advocated the 'Back to the Scriptures' way. 20 Dhavamony, Love of God, 42: In whatever way anyone approaches me, in that same way do I participate in (love) them; my path men follow in all ways, 0 son ofPritha! (4.11).

21 To compare this love with the Christian declaration of the mystery of God's love and human love to God one may go to St. Paul. His letter to the Romans (chapters 5-8) contains his song of love: (8.39) and pervades with God's attribute of love, which is the source of our reconciliation and salvation (5: 8). xx

The Origin and Growth of Bhakti

India had its own heritage of religion, philosophies, traditions and writings before the writing of the Vedas by the . There is an evolutional development of bhakti from almost nothing in the Aryan Vedas and just a few verses in the late Upanishads to its much developed form in the Gita and a much more advanced level in Vaishnavism and

.. Saivism later on. This evolution was not by chance, but by active intervention by individual visionaries or schools at critical points in the history of . 22

The bhakti movement was not made up of sporadic anecdotal incidents here and there, but was the general awakening of the common people at the tIme allover India at the ~ same time. However, over the centuries, later Hinduism retains the Upanishadic of the a-cosmic Absolute (nish-prapanca), and a well-defined theistic realism of a phenomenal world, cosmic Absolutism (sa-prapanca), which is open to all men and women of all castes including all Brahmin women and all Brahmin defectors too.

22 Hiriyanna, Outlines, pp. 89-90; 185: Hiriyanna refers to Maitri Upanishad 1v. 3; vi. 9 and Dates of Philosophical Sutras by Prof. Jacobi, Journal ofAmerican Oriental Society, xxxi. 1911. Manu Sastra 6.66 and 10.97 are quoted verbatim in the Bhagavad-Gita 3.35 and 18.47. xxi

Agape love described, compared and contrasted with bhakti love

In his classical work, Agape and Eros, Anders Nygren explains, how although both words, "Agape" and "Eros," can be translated as "love," they mean completely different things: Agape is the Christian attitude to life and Eros the Greek idea of love which takes the form of Gnosis. Eros is the soul's desire to attain to the blessed vision of the super- sensible world in all its beauty; and Gnosis is nothing but the 'vision of God.' To illustrate this distinction between Agape and Eros, Nygren chooses the "Agape " of

St' Paul (1 Corinthians13),23 where Paul points out the excellence of Agape and makes it the gold-standard to evaluate all spiritual gifts (13.4). Although superficially alike, Agape and Eros are fundamentally two different 'loves:' Eros is ego-c~ntric, Agape is theo- centric; Eros puffs up, Agape "is not puffed up" (13. 4); but edifies" (1 Corinthians 8.1).

Further, Nygren claims that it is Paul who first introduces the term "Agape" in the

Scriptures for "love", and hands down the 'idea of love' to posterity. 24 This is Paul's passionate polemic to enable the Gentile Christians in Corinth to cultivate charismatic gifts to withstand the religious syncretism prevalent in the contemporary Greek world. 25

Agape of the is, in the first place, God's own love, not a religious or ethical ideal to which individuals are called to aspire; Agape is manifested in the life of the "Son of Man," who came to seek and save that which was lost, and above all in his death on the cross; and God's own Agape is active in the human life transformed by the presence of the Holy Spirit. 26

23 A. Nygren, Agape and Eros (London, 1932; New York: Macmillan, 194), 1106. Nygren interprets Agape love from the great love song of St. Paul's we read in the well-known thirteenth chapter of his letter to the Christians at Corinth. Hereafter this will be signified by just the number of the verse in this chapter, 13. 24 Nygren, Agape and Eros, 84.

25 Nygren, Agape and Eros, 99: of Plato, Aristotle, Neo-Platonist and Christian understanding of Eros. 26 Nygren, Agape and Eros, viii: Agape of God and Agape manifested in human life by divine grace. xxii

Nygren argues that Agape and Eros are essentially antithetic to one another, but they are often confused with each other; they represent two independent ideas that must be distinguished in Christian theology. God is both Creator and Redeemer. Eros is the pagan way of salvation set forth by Plato, Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists while Agape is the

Christian way of life. Plato distinguishes the heavenly Eros from the vulgar Eros, which is sensual desire; his Eros is limited to the movement of the human soul towards the satisfaction of its spiritual needs. Aristotle describes the movement of things from

Becoming to Being, the process by which the acorn grows into an oak, or a kitten grows into a cat. The sex-instinct provides the raw material for the artistic and the religious ,

~ temperament; but the heavenly Eros is the sublimation of the sensual Eros.27

The Christian Agape for the neighbor, as shown by Saint Paul, is simply 'God's own

Agape nature' active in the human heart by the Holy Spirit. We cannot analyze the psychology of the Holy Spirit, but we can analyze the Spirit's presence and activity. Paul himself analyzes the soul dominated by Agape: When God's Agape is shed abroad in the hearts, through the Holy Spirit, it gains control of the 'human inmost nature,' it overflows and pours itself on others: "love is patient and kind" (13: 4); "bears all things, believes all things, all things, endures all things" (13.7); "it seeks not its own" because it flows to other human beings (13.5). Whether this love will abide or pass away depends on whether it is born of Divine Agape or human Gnosis-Eros.28

The ideal 'integrated man' of the Gita (6.17-19), the 'Athlete ofthe Spirit' (6.27; 7.3;

8.28) has some similarities with the Christian having Agape, the highest form of

27 Nygren, Agape and Eros, vii; 121-123. In the rite of Dionysiac orgies, god incarnated as an animal is dismembered and eaten by the Titans; in Orphism Zeus created humankind out of the ashes of Titans. This provides the mystery of the divine and earthy nature and immortality of the soul, transmigration, and salvation by , purification etc. We see these elements in the Gita and in Hinduism too. 28 Nygren, Agape and Eros, 104. xxiii

Christian love, the hallmark of Christianity and the norm of Christian life: norm of action

and way of being. Christian theology combines ontology and ethics: What I am, that I do.

As such, Agape consists of spontaneity, freedom and moral implication. Agape is the

highest form of action which is done without expecting anything in return, unconditional

and sacrificiaL It is a state of being because the act of love comes spontaneously; Agape

has become the person's ontological nature (existence). However, the Gita's 'work,'

which is free from desire [of fruit] and motive [even of salvation] (4.19-20); or 'duty'

prescribed by the dharma-sastras (2.47-51; 18.7-11) in relation to the gunas (3.27; 4.15-

18,33), are not exactly the same as the work of a transformed person with Agape.

The human bhakti towards God and the love of God towards th~ bhakta that we see in the Gita are not Agape love of the , where God accepts the individual as he is. In the

Gita, on the other hand, God loves the bhakta, but not unconditionally: he is first integrated-in-spiritual-exercise first to be Brahman, and draws nigh to that is

Brahman too (-nirvana), to qualify for final liberation (5. 24-26) by reaching

Krishna who is the proper object of sacrifice and worship (5. 2, 27- 29). So work is involved in attaining moksha. The of Krishna is to save the bhakta and destroy the enemies, unlike the love on the cross which was to forgive enemies. Besides, loving devotion (bhakti) is action (karma) without seeking rewards (nish--karma), sacrifice (tyaga), and discipline (yoga) necessary for moksha. 29

The love between God and the human being is expressed so freely in the Gita for the first time ever in the . It is not the same as Agape; however, later bhakti religions, Saivism and Vaishnavism are closer to Christianity in this aspect.

29 See below in Chapter 2 for moksha: liberation and salvation in the Gita.

GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 1

CHAPTER 1: THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF BHAKTI IN THE GITA

1.1) THE VEDAS: IS THERE BHAKTI IN THE VEDAS?

In the Vedas, there is theism and 'participation' with the gods but, as we shall see,

not bhakti. The Vedas are the sacred srutis: () that were orally

transmitted from the father to his son or by the teacher to his student to be committed to

memory, and passed on to the next generation with the same pronunciation, accent, tone

and lilt so that the same word and meanings were preserved. They were not written down.

Their gods were personifications of the powers of nature (energy) such as the Wind, the

Dawn, and the Sun. Of the four Vedas of the Hindu religion, the Rig Veda is the most , important and the most authoritative, not only because it is the~ oldest, but because it

contains the sacred revelation, rituals and chants. As the Sama-Veda contains only a

selection of chants from the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda a few formulae for sacrifices, and

the Atharva-Veda mainly spells and incantations, suffice it to look into the Rig Veda

alone for bhakti (loving devotion). I

Religion consisted of naturalistic and sacrificial liturgy in Vedic times.

The gods attained immortality and varying amounts of power by austerity and by

drinking . The Aryans chose one to be superior over the others such as ,

Agni, Varona or Soma; but none of them, not even Indra, the king of the , attained

undisputed pre-eminence as Zeus did in Greece or Jupiter in Rome. Next to Indra is ,

the god of sacrificial fire; fire in every household is honored with a hymn in the very first

verse of the Rig Veda. The gods exercised power over the lives of people who prayed to

them for rain, food, prosperity and victory. The to their preferred deity show their

faith (shraddha) and their personal relationships with the deity as father, mother, friend

rd I A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India (1954; London: Picador, 3 ed. 2004), 234. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 2

or brother. From the prayers to for forgiveness we learn that he is the omnipotent

Emperor, omniscient holy god of natural and moral order (rta), who had the most exalted ethics in the whole of the Rig-Veda (Rig V. vii, 89; viii.41); he is a major god, or he represents many names. Even within the Varuna soon recedes into the background.

They call him Indra, " Varuna, Agni, and he is heavenly nobly-winged Garutman. To what is One, sages give many a title: they call it Agni, , Matarisvan. (Rig Veda 1.164.46)

All these names, says the Rig-Vedic , are of one and the same Divine Being, the

One Supreme Spirit in various manifestations. There was philosophic monotheism and , .oneness of worshipful divinity; yet monotheism proved abortive. 2 ~

As Varuna retreats by the end of the Rig-Vedic period, a clearly defined Creator God,

Prajapati appears, whether wholly from the speculations of the 3 or from non-

Aryan influences (Rig V. x.90). is thought of as , the primeval man, who 'existed before the foundation of the Universe,4; he is also identified with Brahma, the male Creator God, in line with the neuter Brahman. Basham calls this a significant shift from the older theory that the creation of the world depended on a primeval sacrifice

(p. 251: Br.U. i.4). 5 The shifts from Indra to Prajapati, and from the latter to Brahman, are huge game-changes.

2 Basham, The Wonder That Was India, 236-37. 3 In this paper the VedasindexVedas and the Upanishads are denoted by their initial letters; the chapters and sections by Roman numerals; the verses by Arabic numerals; the priestly caste of the Aryans is spelled, "Brahmin" in order to distinguish it from "Brahman" (neuter Absolute) and "Brahma" (male Creator God). 4 I wonder if 'existed before the foundation of the Universe' means that Prajapati existed long before the Rig Vedic Aryans landed in India. Besides, Brahma is the pre-Aryan Dravidian God of Creation. 5 Basham, The Wonder That Was India, 242, 251. The Universe was created when the gods cut the primeval man, Prajapati, and made the first cosmic sacrifice of him; and presumably, he survived his own dismemberment. Prajapati teaches his student Indra after 101 years that the serene Self that moves about happy in a and rises up from the body reaches the highest light and appears in its own form, i.e., in the self-consciousness of the purusha, the Prajapati: that Self is the immortal, fearless, Supreme Person GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 3

Although the Rig Vedic worshipper at the sacrifices and sessions is a 'god- lover' (deva-kama RV. 8.92.7), 'god-seeker' (devayu, RV. 8.92.7) and a 'friend of the gods' (devaya 7.68.4), this love of gods is not the same as the devotion and love (bhakti) of later Hinduism. Secondly, the gods are addressed as siblings born of the same womb, with affection rather than bhakti (R.V. 8.72.8). Thirdly, the worshippers' prayers, soma drinks and sacrificial offeriI).gs are said to strengthen the gods themselves (RV. 2.12.15) who are not like the God of the bhakti worship, who strengthens the devotee.6

In the Vedic-Period or in the literature of that period which we possess today, even in the Vedic religious context, the term bhakti is never used to express 'worship' or 'love' of , God, but merely as 'participation' in the sacrificial ritual (10.15.3);7 the purpose of the hymns was to conjure gods to the sacrifice, propitiate them, and win their favor.s

In the well-known "Creation hymns," found in the very last chapter of the Rig-Veda, which is distinctly different from the preceding nine chapters, we have some evidence for

"the Aryan Hypothesis." It is here that we see the Rig Vedic (pre-Aryan, Dravidian and other peoples of India)9 crave for religious truth, as to how the great Visvakarman

(male) generated the external, empirical, experiential world of heaven and earth observed outside of the body (RV. 10.72; 81; 90; 121). Here we also see their metaphysical introspection and rational quest as to how the Creator is 'different' from primal matter

('moola-prakriti' RV. 10.82.2), how the Creator is the 'golden seed' (hiranya-garbha), and the formless moving mass (RV. 10.129) This quest for the 'Vedic Brahman' is not

(Uttamapurusha), a significant shift from the older theory that the creation of the world depended on a primeval sacrifice (p. 251: Br.D. i.4). 6 Dhavamony, Love of God According to Saiva Siddhanta (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971),55. 7 Dhavamony, Love of God, 47-56. 8 Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India (Princeton, New Jersey, 1967),58. 9 Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 60. This "Aryan Hypothesis" will be explained below in page 120. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 4 purely metaphysical, but also religious. These hypotheses in the Vedas about a Creator

God, the 'All-One,' who is time, breath, austerity, greatness and Brahman (kala, , and Brahman)1O were later raised into the status of the 'Absolute Brahman' in the

Upanishads. The key issue in all these religious speculations is the nature of the

Absolute: Is the Absolute an impersonal principle or a personal God? 11 We can see a series of game-changes from the Creator god Visvakarman to Purusha-Sukhta,

Hiranyagarbha and the Brahman of the Rig Veda, the Absolute Brahman of the

Upanishads, and eventually, the Personal God of the Gita. Do we see the origin of the

Purushothama (the Highest Spirit) of the Gita in the Purusha-Sukhta, of the Rig Veda?

1. 2 THE UPANISHADS AND BHAKTI

IS THERE BHAKTI IN THE UPANISHADS?

At first, the Upanishadic sages with enquiring minds lost their grip on the Vedic hymns overlaid with endless rituals and sacrifices. They started seeking an essentially intellectual explanation for the beginnings of the world. The fundamental character of the principles of their religious quest is cold, impersonal, and speculative. The Upanishadic sage's first eager quest and philosophical speculation was 'the One Ultimate' cause of the universe, tat ekam. Because the quest has not grown old, and their cosmogonic theories had not been superseded, they continued to look for new explanations. The woman , Gargi's question to , whether all the 'warp and woof' of the

10 Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 77: This Vedic Brahman was power or "sakti" in the subsequent centuries. 11 Dhavamony, Love of God, 57-58. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 5 world is woven on water (Br.U.3.6; 5.5) 12 reminds one of Thales who thought that the origin of the world was water. Both in the Vedas and here, the quest was metaphysical and religious:

From the unreal lead me to the real, from darkness lead me to light. From death lead me to immortality (Bf. U. 1.3.28).

Resembling the early Greek cosmologists, e.g., Xenophanes, who looked up into the expanse of the skies and said, ''The One is God,,,13 the Upanishadic sages were advancing intellectual and speculative theories of causation of the whole world from some primordial material. By they discovered the inherent unity, of all things and this

~ intelligent was accepted by all their descendents throughout the centuries. Every philosophic system in India referred to the Upanishads for authority: the atheistic

Carvakas, non-orthodox Buddhists, orthodox Purva-meemamsa, -Vaiseshika and

Sankhya-Yoga sought support from the Upanishads. 14

1.3 The Upanishadic bhakti

In the course of time, within the Upanishads, new inquiries arose about the origin of all kinds of material things and human beings. They looked inwards for answers to the fundamental question: What is the innermost self (atman) of all things and of individual human beings? What or who is the real power behind all the functions of the universe, internal in human beings and external to them in nature. Different Upanishadic scholars

12 Br. U is . Dhavamony, Love o/God, 58. Who is this One Reality, satyasya satyam? In Chapter 3 of the Brahadharanyaka Upanishad Ajatasatru defines Brahman as the 'real of the real' as the 'true Self of all self,' 'the inner controller,' the 'thinker beyond thought,' the 'understander not understood,' the 'warp and the woof of all things,' 'other than the world, but controlling it from within.' 13 Aristotle, , 1.5. 14 Hiriyanna, Outlines, 89, 107. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 6 thought differently, while some rejected answers with a "! Neti!" or "No, No" (BrV.

1V.v.16), the Unlimited is inscrutable (BrU. l.iv.I-5, 7); (Kena U. 1.3. ii.l, 3, 5) cannot be defined by the limited. If living beings are undergoing change (kshara) and death, and

Brahman alone is unchanging (akshara), Brahman must be the "Real of the Real" satyasya-satyam (BrU. 11. i. 20; iii.6); Brahman is the inner controller (BrU. 111.vii.15,

23), the inmost self, the !unseen-seer,' the hearer, the thinker beyond thought, the understander not understood, the 'warp and the woof of all things; It is other than the world but controlling it from within (BrU. 111. viii. 6-8,11).

The Upanishads have a diversity of doctrinal and religious trends, and there is an ,

~ evolution of thought within them. The dominant trend is the 'Brahman-Atman equation,' that is, the Oneness of the ultimate ground of all existence and the ultimate consciousness of the self in man. The early Upanishads show this mystical speculative equation: The

Mandukya opens with the words, "This whole world is Brahman; the self is Brahman"

(Mandukya 1.1), and the Chandogya also has these words (Chand.U.7.xxv.I-2); the realization of 'that One' (tad ekam) is jnana that leads to liberation. Another early

Upanishad, the Brihadaranyaka, declares, "Brahman is Atman" (BrU. 11.i. 2-13), and

"Whoever knows "I am Brahman" ( brahma asmi) becomes "this All" (BrU. l.iv.lO). The 'non-dualistic' trend is clearly seen in Yajnavalkya's teaching in the

Brahadaranyaka Upanishad, "this self is Brahman" ("ayam atma brahma" BrU. l.iv.17), and in Uddalaka's words to Svetaketu in the (Vl.xii.l-

3), "That thou art" ("tat tvam ,,).15

15 There are four parallel Vedic mahavakyas (great aphorisms): 'prajnanan Brahma (Rig Veda), aham Brahma asmi (Yajur Veda), and tat-tvam asi (Sarna Veda) ayam atma Brahma (Atharva Veda). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 7

However, despite this non-dualistic outlook, in the later Upanishads, such as the

Katha (c.500 BCE), there is a glimmering of an evolution of thinking towards theism,

and the Svetasvatara (c. 250-200 BCE) contains the fullest expression of the theistic

belief to be found in the Upanishads. The nameless and formless Brahman is replaced by

gods with names and attributes. God is called "Isvara" in the Isa and Katha Upanishads,

and "Rudra-Siva" in the Sv,etasvatara Upanishad. The relationship between the world

and God is concealed (immanent) as in the fire-drill and the butter-milk, and like the

spider and the web it produces according to its desire. The worshippers are exhorted to

have their bhakti (devotion) directed towards the Absolute, who is identified with one of

the Vedic gods, Rudra-Siva. Worship becomes more fervent than the Vedic sacrifice had

been. Greater importance .is given to personal experience than to the corporate

ceremonies of the earlier period, and a new value to Siva as religious teacher (guru). 16

The difference between universal Self and the individual human self (

and jivatman) is distinct. There is also a metaphysical difference between matter and

spirit: the Sankhya prakriti / purusha duality that had become a unity under Vedantic

monism has again become distinct in the bhakti religion as One God and the innumerable

human beings (the One and the Many). The famous passage in the Satapada

(10.6.3) is said to contain the earliest definition of the Hindu concept of God, repeated in

the Chandogya Upanishad, where Brahman is called:

This whole, that transcends the world, for it is greater than the great and indwells the human self as something smaller than a grain of rice (Ch U 3.14.3-4).

Brahman is the cause of the 'phenomenal world':

16 A. J. Appasamy, The BhagavadGita, (: Venkateswara University Press, 1971), 121. This is one of the lectures given at the Gita Conference. The Anglican Bishop, Appasamy, is a Tamil scholar and writer. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 8

As a spider is the cause of the web it spins, and as the fire is the cause of the tiny sparks that leap out of it, and as the fire of the smoke, so from this self issue all life-breaths (prana), all worlds, all gods, all contingent beings. The 'hidden meaning' (rahasyam, Upanishad) of the above is the 'Real of the real' (satyasya (Br.Up. 2.1.20).

But distinctly different is the idea of God as origin, sustainer, and indweller of the universe and of the human self' slowly begins to emerge; God is also the final cause similar to the that receives all the rivers. 'That is Atman: that thou art, my son,

Svetaketu' equates the individual self with the Universal Atman (Chand.Up.6:10.1).

The tendency towards a conception of God is seen in referring to Brahman (Self) and purusha (person), as Creator of all, or king of all (Br. Up. 2.5.14-15; 4.4.10). In the

Katha Upanishad, the personal god Yama is also the impersonal, Brahman: Yama is the

~ Lord of both the ideal world of Brahman and the becoming world of Isvara; purusha is often used to mean the supreme GOd. I7 Further, the teaches the doctrine of grace, that the Soul cannot be obtained by instruction or the intellect or learning but by

He who reveals Himself to whom He chooses (Katha D.2.23; Mundaka U. 3.2.3).

The Svetasvatara Upanishad is called the 'gateway of Hinduism' as it boldly opposes the 'atmavada' assertion (Brahman-Atman equation) of the early Upanishads with its own Isvaravada (lsvara-Alone-assertion), that it is not Atman but God who is the origin and the end of all. It rejects Brahman and establishes God (Rudra-Siva) as presiding over causes, time and self (Sv. U.I.3). Siva combines the divine of the early

Upanishads: (unmanifest Brahman) and the highest spiritual aspects of the human into

17 Dhavamony, Love of God, 59. Refer also to R. C. Zaehner, "Hindu and Muslim Mysticism", (University of London, 1960),42 ff; and "At Sundry Times", London, 1958), 104-15. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 9 itself. Rudra-Siva is Creator, Prajapati, , and Visvakarman of the ancient

Vedas and the guru (Sv.U 6.16). 18

Another Game-Change Theism enters Hinduism again; bhakti appears suddenly in the late Upanishads

Summing up, bhakti in the strict sense of 'love of God,' is not present at all in the

Upanishads, except for some references to a God who is differentiated from the individual soul in the Katha Upanishad; but it is clearly in the Svetasvatara Upanishad.

Even in the latter, the word bhakti (love) is used only once in the last verse (6.23) of its last chapter, and prasada (grace) in 6.21. And even in verse 23, bhakti is not between

God and the devotee but between the teacher (guru) and the stu4,ent (sishya). Not even words akin to love such as (karuna) are found in any Upanishad. 19

This absence of love in all the Upanishads and its sudden appearance in the last chapter of a later Upanishad, the Svetasvatara, is as surprising as the absence of the theistic Creation in the whole of the Vedas and its sudden appearance in its last chapter. It is possible that Svetasvatara's poetry and the theistic Creation songs (1.3; 6.16) were already extant in the Vedic times, but were made canonical much later. Fr. Dhavamony considers that the last verses (6.21, 23) of this late Upanishad and the last chapter of the

Rig Veda may be later interpolations.2o Although the Svetasvatara contains all the

18 Dhavamony, Love of God, 61-63, 67: It is in the Svetasvatara Upanishad, which is the 'gateway of Hinduism,' and especially of all philosophical Saivism, that the supreme God, Rudra-Siva, is identified atman or purusha. This Upanishad attempts a new synthesis of Vedic and Upanishadic doctrines under the aegis of the personal God (the Deva) and crowns the ancient spiritual ways with the doctrines of grace and bhakti to Siva. Whereas Rudra was an outcast god in the Vedas, as Rudra-Siva, he is the auspicious, gracious, the transcendent and immanent Lord and the God of devotional worship (Sv. U. 1.3; 6.16ft).

19 Robert Hume, The Thirteen Principal Upanishads: Translated from the Sanskrit, with an outline of the philosophy of the Upanishads, 2nd Ed., (London: Oxford University Press, 1977), 411.

20 Wendy Doniger-O'Flaherty, The Hindus: An Alternative History, (New York: The Penguin Press, 2009), 164 and 252. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 10 requirements of theism, it is only possible to say that monotheism is still in the making at this stage since the personal God and the impersonal Absolute are assimilated here.21

1. 4 THE EPICS AND BHAKTI

Is there loving devotion (bhakti) in the two epics, Mahabharata and ?

We see a developed form of Hindu religious practice in the Mahabharata, claimed to be the , and a revered Hindu ideal in the Ramayana. Although the epics are works of history, there are philosophical discussions of the four purusharthas: dharma, , kama and moksha, the four spheres of human action: (right, way of living, making

~ wealth, living in the family and liberation). The Mahabharata takes for granted the structure of the society already existing, as classes and castes, without recognizing the need to, or necessity for, social action to change it. Hence Yudhishtira, his cousins and kings from all quarters of India had to fight the fratricidal battle as , and preserve and continue the social framework.

The classical period with Sanskrit as the language of the holy writ comes to an end, when the epics and the arrive as the smrtis, the storehouses of devotional

Hinduism. Both epics have played an important role in the development of popular Hindu religious thought open to all people irrespective of caste and class. Official Hinduism was originated with the Veda as the sacred book and source of infallible wisdom; it was saved by and for the highest caste, the Brahmins, and could be accessed only by the other two twice-born castes. The lower caste sudras, women, (even the Brahmin women), and the

'out-castes' were forbidden access to the Veda. The Upanishads too were forbidden to

21 Hiriyanna, Outline of Indian Philosophy, 83. The requirements of theism are belief in God, the soul and the world, and the conviction that devotion to God is the true means of salvation. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 11 these dis-enfranchised groups. Even if they knew Sanskrit, they were forbidden to read the scriptures. It was, then, largely to satisfy the needs of these three lower groups that the puranas and the were written in their regional vernaculars. This practice is similar to the way the protestant hymns were written in German and other European languages when was hidden from the public by the Roman Catholic Church in the

Reformation period. The Bhagavad-Gita, open to all, was the chief ; paradoxically, it was also called the last Upanishad; and as such, part of the prasthanatreyi. 22

With the coming of the puranas and the smritis in the local vernaculars, a long- awaited need, bhakti was born as a new type of religion, bearing, the love of God for all

~ people. An extensive literature began to develop throughout India, which the people could understand and express themselves. This was the triumph of bhakti, the loving adoration of a personal God representing the third phase of Hinduism, the two former phases being the Vedic-Upanishadic, and the Epic. This grand transformation is reflected in the Neo-Vedantin philosophies of later Hinduism which rejected the classic monist ontology elaborated by the great Sankara in the ninth century AD. 23

In Hinduism, bhakti is often employed in the sense of both secular and religious love. In the religious context, it expresses not only man's love of God but also God's love for man. As the lower castes and the untouchables were not allowed to learn Sanskrit in which the smrtis were written, and were not allowed to read the Vedas and the

Upanishads (srutis) even if they knew Sanskrit somehow, the epics and the puranas

(smrtis) were written for their consumption in several local languages. However, the low

22 Zaehner, Hinduism, 10-12. 23 Zaehner, Hinduism, 13.Chronology GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 12

castes knew that they could not to attain moksha or liberation by reading the smrtis

alone for, without the srutis they will have to go through the cycle of births.

In the epic Mahabharata, a smriti, the word 'love' (bhaj) is used in several ways. We

see the impersonal secular use of bhaj at the of who says to his wife

Damayanti that she 'partakes' of' him, a mortal, for her lot in the presence of the gods

(MBh. 3.Nalopakhyana, 5. ~1); and in the Ramayana, Queen Kaikeyi (loves) her

son to be crowned as King (R. 2.11.28). Dharoma pleads to Indra to let his dog

go with him into Indra's heaven because the dog is devoted to him (bhakta).

The Mahabharata uses bhakti for secular human love outside of sex also, as in the , sense of a king who was the darling of his devoted or loyal slilbjects (bhaktavatsala,

MBh.17.3), loyalty to the king as raja-bhakti (MBh. 5. 3.59). Bhakti comes as respect for

the 'fidelity' of Savitri to her husband (MBh. 3. . Pativr, 401-402). Bhakti from

men to God is seen rarely as in what says, "Blame not the Creator God

Brahma, through whose grace (prasada) mortal devotees get immortality" (MBh. 3. 31,

41 ff); but bhakti of God to man is absent.

1. 5 THE ORIGIN OF BHAKTI

Bhakti is essentially pre-Aryan, non-Aryan, Dravidian. Below is a brief survey of the

vast range of the bhakti movements in India. Scholars who have traced the doctrine of

bhakti in the early Sanskrit sacred writings do not find much evidence that point to the

Aryan origin of bhakti. The hymns and the of the Vedic theistic period are so

overlaid with sacrifices and rituals for nature gods such as Agni, Indra and Varona, that there was no place for the kind of bhakti that we see in the Gita later. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 13

In time, the focus moved away from the deities to Vedic ritualism, sacrificial excesses, asceticism and the growing domination of the Brahmin priesthood - and a general frustration with externals. The Upanishadic Brahmanism24 of the next period moved away from the Vedic rituals and insisted on an intellectual religious quest, which is fundamentally impersonal and speculative. Brahmanism's 'liberation' (moksha) was the realization of the soul's 90mplete identity with the Absolute, which alone is real.

In contrast, the object of the bhakti religion is the God of definite nature and many attributes; he is a loving protector, master and friend, as in the Gita. 'Salvation,' in the bhakti religion, means oneness with the personal God through love (bhakti).25 In the bhakti religion visual representations of the God, in images of 'Siva or Vishnu or the latter's avatars such as Krishna are used in worship (), but there is relatively little stress on ritualism or asceticism.

Worship of images was prevalent in the pre-Aryan and non-Aryan civilizations of

Mohenjodaro and Harappa, but absent in Rigvedic theism. None of the favorite gods of the bhakti cult of Hinduism is prominent in the Aryan religion: Siva is pre-figured as

Rudra, and Vishnu is a minor god mentioned just six times in the Rig Veda. It is significant that these two gods, Siva and Vishnu, have "attained their real stature in conjunction with the non-Aryan elements of bhakti that contributed to the transformation of Brahmanism into Hinduism. ,,26

24 The two words 'Brahmanism' and 'Brahminism' are different. Brahmanism is the religion of the Absolute Reality, and Brahminism is the culture of the Brahmins, the Aryan priestly uppermost caste.

25 Liberation or moksha or spiritual freedom is the spiritual goal of both Hindus and the Buddhists. (See notes Zaehner, 28-36). To be discussed separately in this paper.

26 Dhavamony, Love o/God, 97. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 14

Wendy Doniger wonders if Hinduism needed such a synthesis of the previous strands of religion to meet the challenges of Buddhism and Jainism at this time. For by now, the Buddha and the Jaina had successfully established their paradigm of religious movement centered upon the human being. The bhakti movement, therefore, counters

Buddhism and J ainism by the avatars (Krishna and ) , who were believed to be more powerful than the Ve4ic gods because they derive direct power from God (Vishnu) and have grounding in humanity.27 The game-change in later Buddhism includes divinization of the Buddha, devotion, images and chants.

However, Brahmanism being exclusively priestly, hierarchical, aristocratic,

I parochial, and Brahminic,28 withholding the Vedas and the Sanskrit language from the lower castes and all women, including Brahmin women, it could not resist the bhakti cult that had a universal appeal. The Hindu saints of the 'bhakti Renaissance' (12th-17th centuries) were great reformers as well, protesting against inequalities and seeking to broaden the religion and suppress the restrictions of caste. Ramanuja, as we will see, was such an example, who chose even some of his disciples from the low caste.

This is a complex period of Indian history when the Iranic Aryan Brahmanic religion of the Indus Valley amalgamated with the local Hinduism of the Gangetic plains; and the northern Indian civilization mixed with that in the Dravidian South India. The movement toward the south was not of a Veda-based Aryan north, but a Hindu North consisting of

Aryan and non-Aryan elements?9 This paper is too short to discuss this period fully, but

27 Wendy Doniger, The Hindus: An Alternative History (New York: Penguin, 2009). 223. 28 Brahminic is different from Brahmanic: Brahminic is to do with the Brahmin caste, and Brahmanic with the Absolute One, although there is an association of the Brahmin's belief in the Brahmanic belief system. 29 M. Dhavamony, Love a/God, 98. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 15 we will see how the Gita responded to this great merging of racial, cultural and religious elements.

The notion of bhakti appears in two of the late Upanishads, Katha and Svetasvatara; it is more explicit in the very last verse ofthe latter (6.21). Scholars of the early history of

Hinduism do not think that Brahmanism developed into a bhakti religion independent of the non-Aryan bhakti cult, but that Brahmanism grew into Hinduism by assimilating and syncretising the non-Brahmanic religious elements in India, i.e., Buddhism, Jainism,

Sankhya-Yoga, Nyaya-Vaiseshika, and the bhakti cult. Bhakti was native to India, not borrowed from Christianity, but arose from the deep religiosity, inherent in the human

~ sou1. 30 Even so, it makes one wonder if elements of Judeo-Christianity also were assimilated at this time (before and after Christ) when travelers, traders and soldiers from

Greece, Rome, Palestine, and Afghanistan visited India because the words 'love' and

'grace' which are almost non-existent in early Hindu texts are suddenly profuse in the

Gita, even more than karuna and drawn from Buddhism. 31

30 M. Dhavamony, Love of God, 97.

31 A. L. Basham, Wonder that was India, 61; 345; 482-83, Plate LXXXVII. Basham maintains "that Saint Thomas preached in India is by no means impossible" (p. 61), and he repeats ... "that the Thomas tradition is believable: any enterprising missionary could have easily traveled from Palestine to India." Alexander the Great could come into north-west India (326 BCE) with his large army of horses and chariots along the roads in the Himalayan mountain ranges; after his time the roads to India were made even better by the Romans. That India's communications and trade with the west is historical is suggested by the Greek and Roman gold and silver coins of the first three centuries BC and AD dug out from Bactria and north-west India (Plate LXXXVII) and Madurai in south India. D. Devakala Jotimani, The origin and Growth of Tamil Bhakti Margam: from the perspective of the Bible (Madras: DRT Press, 1997), Plates 46 and 47. The necessity for Emperor Asoka to inscribe in Aramaic, the language of the Jews, in the rock edicts in Kandahar and Taxilla shows the possibility of a sizeable Jewish population very close to India. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 16

1. 6 THE TAMIL BHAKTI MOVEMENT

There are the Sangam Tamil literary works of the early centuries of the Christian era that show that the Dravidians of South India were evolving their own bhakti cult around their own gods such as Sivan, Murugan and Mayan at least from this time. Some would give an earlier date from literary sources such as Patthu-pattu and Ettu-thahai where the native south Indian gods are described. All the same, during this process, they were absorbing north Indian religious concepts too.

But from the sixth century CE onwards, the Tamil mystics influenced the bhakti movement to develop vigorously. Some would put down the mystic Tim-moolar, one of the earliest Siddhars, to the fifth century CEo Professor Zaehnet describes the Tamil bhakti movement as an impassioned cry against the ossified ceremonial religion of the

Brahmans and the ideal of passionlessness, which they shared with the Buddhists and the

J ains?2 This bhakti movement spread throughout India and brought about the disappearance of Buddhism in the country. This fact is confirmed by the Sanskrit sources

32 R. C. Zaehner, Hinduism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1962), 171.

33 Purana, 11. 5. 39-41. This ninth century (CE) source pays a tribute to the Tamils who fostered bhakti, and describes the whole of the peninsular India as its birth place. A similar passage in "Padma purana" ( Kanda 189.51) gives similar information by lovely poetry depicting bhakti as a mother telling her own story of being born in the Tamil country and losing her two sons jnana and ). Padma purana also belongs to the late ninth century CEo We have to be cautious in accepting historic evidence from poetry, but there must have been such a tradition when they were written. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 17

CHAPTER TWO

The Use of the Gita for bhakti: BhagavadGita bhakti Verses

Bhakti is Gita's Priority. The Gita text as a whole supports this hypothesis. The verse-count of bhakti in the Gita confirms this hypothesis. Therefore the hypothesis is true.

Pre-view

As we are examining the BhagavadGita for evidence in its bhakti verses, it is important to look for the word bhakti and its synonymous and closely related words: love, grace, affection, worship, devotion, loyalty, participation, communion, reverence, offering, friendship or relationships such as indwelling, and subsisting. The term 'revere' is usually ~ used in relation to Brahmanic veneration, not loving devotion to God. This thesis uses the translation of the Bhagavad-Gita by Zaehner, except when the reference is from another source; and uses the word 'self' to mean 'soul. The usage of abbreviations is as denoted in the footnote below. 34

It is the study of the bhakti verses that open our vision to the genuine purport of the

Gita. This paper prefers to use the word bhakti (loving devotion) to the term love or grace

(daya, prasada or anugraha); bhakti means human devotional love of, and for, God; love is reciprocal between God and human beings, while grace is unilateral from God to humanity. Hindu bhakti is not the same as the Christian love (Agape). Bhakti's grace is close to the "grace" of the Bible, but perhaps not so expressive. In this respect, Saivism and Vaishnavism - the later developed forms of bhakti religions of Hinduism - are much

34, In this paper S refers to Sankara, R to Ramanuja, Rk to Radhakrishnan, CB to Chit-bhavananda, Z to Zaehner, and 'n' to notes. The Upanishads are denoted by their initial letters; the chapters and sections by Roman numerals; the verses by Arabic numerals. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 18 closer to the Christian idea of love and grace than the Gita. Although the Tamil word anbu is a good parallel of bhakti, this paper uses the latter as it is better known to most readers.

In order to probe the heart of the Gita, first a word-search was made for bhakti in the

Gita, and then the term was studied in its context. This showed the distribution of the occurrences of the word bhakti in the Gita, and the methodology used to concentrate the word in certain sections of the text. This demonstrated that bhakti is a new concept for a new way of life toward the final goal of moksha. I do not claim, however, that my word count of bhakti is complete.

~ It is necessary to ask at this point, whether this 'highest mystery' that Krishna is preaching in the Gita to Arjuna (4.3) is a new (original) teaching or a renewal

(rediscovery) of an ancient (puratana) teaching (4.1; 3).35 The word "original" has many meanings. R. C. Zaehner and P. M. Thomas take 'original' to mean 'unique,' whereas

Radhakrishnan takes it to mean 'initial.' As Vishnu teaches a new dharma or mode of living in every (birth) of His, in His Krishna-avatar, He is teaching a new mode of living, bhakti. Krishna argues that since the 'mode of life' He had taught to Vivasvat in one of His previous avatars (4.1) had been lost in the long period of oral transmission

(4.2), in this present avatar, He (Krishna), is preaching His primeval highest mystery, bhakti, today, to His bhakta (loyal devoted friend) Arjuna. (4.3). This declaration is to be

35 R. C. Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, (Oxford: Oxford University, 1973) 181: 'the new teaching is the original mode of life that Krishna taught to the royal sages, Vivas vat, Manu etc was lost in the oral transmission.' P. M. Thomas, The BhagavadGita: Tilak, Gandhi & Aurobindo in 20th Century Indian Interpretation of the BhagavdGita (Bangalore: ISPCK, Delhi, 1987), 12, n: bhakti is a 'new teaching'; Krishna does not relate the lost "Supreme Secret" to the Vedas.

S. Radhakrishnan, The BhagavadGita (London: George Allen Unwin, 1971), 152: This teaching to Arjuna is a 'renewal,' a rediscovery, a restoration of long forgotten." GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 19 taken as the internal, textual validation of authenticity of the new teaching of to His bhakta by the Gita's author, Krishna himself-for bhakti is a new topic that has never been written about in any Sanskrit Hindu text.

It is important to know that philosophy (darsana) is a 'vision' of 'Reality and Truth' by means of valid knowledge accepted by the groUp.36 With this mysterious 'highest truth about truth' (rahasyam-uttamam), Krishna replaces the Upanishadic satyasya-satya (the truth of the truth) which is Brahman itself, imparted by the guru to his pupil or son

(Chandogya U 6.29): in the Gita, Krishna, the guru, is imparting His mystical of love to His pupil, Arjuna (4.3). Love is a new teaching in Hinduism, at this stage.

~ To appreciate this verse (4.3) better, we should understand the methodology behind

Krishna's argument: Krishna first rejects the ancient (purva) teaching before he introduces his new teaching (today). This method is called Purvapaksha- siddhanta, which is used generally in all Indian philosophical work: first, the opponent's view

(Purvapaksha) is stated, and then, after this view is rejected, one gives the final view

(siddhanta). In the Gita, Krishna first rejects Krishna's own primal revelation because it had become stale with time, and been lost; and then He preaches His highest new revelation (bhakti) to replace the old (purva). He recognizes the existence of other points of view (of Reality), and goes beyond them to present his own new view (siddhanta or new Truth). Of these two words for love, bhakti"and daya, bhakti turns out to be the more dominant in the Gita, occurring some 41 times; grace is sparse with only three

36 V. A. Devasenapati, Philosophical Heritage of the Tamils (Madras: International Institute of Tamil Studies, 1983), vii: explains the two methods used for philosophical exposition: purvapaksha-siddhanta and prasna-uttara. In the latter method the guru answers the questions raised by his students or others.

J. L. Mohanty, Classical Indian Philosophy (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000),145: The word, "darsana' is derived from the root, "drs" (=to see). Philosophy in the Indian view has something to do with "seeing." Accordingly, philosophy (darsana), in India, was an intensely intellectual, rigorously discursive and relentlessly critical pursuit. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 20 occurrences; bhakti is most numerous in the ninth, twelfth and the eighteenth chapters, with the seventh chapter coming next as shown below.

TABLE: 2

Distribution of bhakti verses in the Gita's eighteen chapters

Chapters: 1234567 89 10111213 14 15 161718

Verses: - - - 2 - 2 729 3' 3 10 1 1 1 - -- 7

The number of bhakti verses 48

The Central section of the Gita (Chapters 7-12) focuses on God and bhakti.

The last verses (of Chapter 18) of the Gita form the grand climax, of God and bhakti.

~

The pattern of distribution of the key word bhakti confirms the fact that bhakti is the essential message of the Gita. The message of bhakti develops in three stages: In chapters

1-6 the spotlight is mainly on the captain of the team, the Absolute Brahman, the star player, the 'man-of-steady-wisdom' (2.72), with the , jnana and karma in the background. Chapters 7-12, by contrast, focuses on God, and His winning team of free-spirits, the bhaktas (loving devotees) revealing the superiority of God over Brahman.

In chapters 13-18 the message concentrates on the supreme, loving and gracious God, the mystery of His victory (final salvation) through the strategy of joyous bhakti.

In the first section of the Gita, the subject matter is a necessary preface to the supreme bhakti for it speaks of God only as the object of , the individual self as being immortal and of the stuff of Brahman. It describes the ideal yogin as someone of steady wisdom marching like an athlete towards liberation; this integrated individual self reaches the immortal state of Brahman which is Nirvana too. This state of the athlete is GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 21

similar to the 'flame without flicker in a windless place' (6.19), but still imperfect: bhakti

leads him to final victory (salvation) in the next two stages.

The second section embodies the central message of the Gila: God in all His majesty

is not just the object of meditation (yoga) and knowledge (jnana) of the scriptures; both

are possible for only a few athletes of the spirit; but God, rather, is the object of love and surrender which are open to .all through the easy path of bhakti . As the ideal , though fully integrated in Brahman, is still imperfect without

bhakti; he has now to be integrated in God too through bhakti, and become a bhakta:

loyal, devoted, and devout in order to attain liberation because the Personal God is higher , than Nirvana which is Brahman too. The already integrated wise yogin is purified by

bhakti alone to participate in God (13. 18); he approaches God (14. 15) and participates

in God's nature: he abides in God and God in him (9.29).

In the third and last stage comes the revelation of the mystery of the immeasurable

love of God towards the bhakta who is contented in abiding or possessing God's love

through bhakti (18.51-5; 65). But the concept that even when God dwells in the bhakta,

the bhakta is distinct from God, who is the object of his bhakti, is characteristic of the

Gita, Vaishnavism and Saivism, in contrast to Advaitism, where the individual loses his

own identity in his union with God: That thou art and That I am (tat tvam asi; aham

Brahma asmi). In the following section, we will trace the golden thread of bhakti that

runs through the Gita.

CHAPTER 2: LIST of BHAKTI VERSES in the GITA (love 48, grace 2, mercy 1,

compassion 1, worship 6 )

4 .3: My comrade bhakta, My mysterious preaching to you today: the same Primeval mode of life.

4.11: Whatever way bhaktas approach Me, in the same way I return their love ... annya-bhakti GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 22

6. 31: The fully integrated athlete should become a bhakta: This is the climax of chapter 6.

6.47: The best athlete is the one who subsumes in Me: trusts, honors, loves and is absorbed in Me.

7. 16: Four types of karma-bhaktas: Low: those afflicted, seek wisdom, seek gain; know jnana.

7.17: Of the 'integrated jnanis,' I'm dear to those who love and worship Me as they're dear to Me

7.18: 'Integratedjnana,' the highest way of prapatti is to be as dependent on God as God is on him

7.20: Trust (worship) of 'annya gods' is forced by inherent gunas as desire sweeps wisdom away. , 7. 21: If with faith a bhakta desires to honor 'annya forms', I confirm that faith unswerving.

7.22: Faithful worship of other gods may give small gains of desires, but I am the true dispenser.

7.23: Unwise worshippers desire temporary rewards, go to other gods; My bhaktas come to Me.

8. 10: In death-bed by bhakti on Personal God and yoga exercises, not yoga alone, he goes to Him. ~ 8. 22: The highest Personal God is to be won by loving ananya bhakti; in Him all beings subsist.

9.22: Those who always meditate on Me & honor Me alone withjnana will keep what they attain.

9.25: Worshippers of gods, ancestors or dead-spirits go to them; My worshippers come to Me.

9. 26: Offer Me even a leaf, flower or fruit with love: I accept it willingly as an offering of love.

9.27: All action, eating, offering, giving or doing penance be self-sacrifice arpanam to Me.

9.29: I am in alljivas; I love them equally; those who love, commune and abide in Me, I in them.

9.30: Whatever one's caste duty may be, if he resolves to love no only Me; he'll be seen as good.

9. 31: None who worships in love and with loyalty is ever lost to Me - he will win eternal rest.

9.33: So it is easier for Brahmins, Kshatriyas, who know the theory of bhakti to love Me in praxis.

9. 34: The integrated yukta striving with mind, yoga, tyaga, loving service to Me to come to Me.

10.8: The wise know I'm the source of all are fulfilled communing with Me in love and affection.

10. 10: To bhaktas communing with Me in love I give integration of the selfto draw near Me.

11. 31: You cruel incomprehensible being, have 'mercy' on Me; who are you; what are you doing?

11. 54 Only by ananya-bhakti to Me, I can be known and seen as I Am - my lovers can enter Me.

11. 55: They'll come to Me their goal, who love Me loyally, serve, live un-attached and virtuous.

12. I: Your bhaktas, or those who revere Brahman, who are more advanced in spiritual exercise? GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 23

12.6: Those who do exclusive works, devotion, meditation, to Me alone do Me honor.

12. 13: Those without hatred, but are friendly, compassionate and has the brahma-viharas I love.

12. 14: I return the love of those contented, mind integrated, soul steeped in Me w. loving devotion

12. 15: I love him who does not shrink away from people, people do not shrink f him, not proud ...

12. 16: I love the man equanimous, parityagi who gives up selfish works or gains, phalatyagi

12. 17: I love the devoted devout balanced, not mourn loss, discards pleasant & unpleasant things

12: 18-19: I love the devoted man, same to good and , praise and blame; silent; steady minded

12.20: I love greatly my devotees who revere my eternal righteous words, believe Me as the goal.

13: 10: Commends unswerving bhakti + ascetic attitudes, separate from society and silence cf 7 -11

18.62: In Him alone you seek refuge w. all yr being, all yr love; by His grace )Iou attain salvation.

13. 18: If a bhakta knows Brahma-, he is fit to share in My joy.

14. 26: I support those with loving loyalty, spiro exercise beyond the gunas, before- after liberation.

15.19: Who knows Me as the sublime person knows all, and communes with Me with all his love.

18.64: My highest mysterious word to you is I love you well.; So I will tell you of your salvation.

18. 65: Love Me; think of Me; worship Me; sacrifice, prostrate to Me, you are dear to Me.

18. 67: Do not tell of My love to unbelievers who have no love and loyalty for Me.

18.68: But tell my highest mystery to my loving devotees who show loving loyalty to Me.

18.69: Nobody renders more pleasing service to Me than this man; no man is loved by Me more.

18. 73: My confusion & ignorance have gone by your grace (prasada); I stand ready to obey you.

48 verses use the word, "love" 83 times; "mercy" once (11. 31), compassion twice (12. 13), grace twice (12. 13, 18.62; 73), worship six times (7.20; 22-23; 8.9; 9.22, 25). 2.1 EXAMINATION OF THE GITA VERSES ON BHAKTIIN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

With this brief introduction, we can now examine the Gita verses on bhakti to

examine if the proposition that 'the purport of the Gila is bhakti,' is really true. As stated

above, the first six chapters are almost devoid of references to bhakti except for two GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 24 verses in chapter four (4.3; 11), and another two verses in chapter six. According to

Ramanuja, the reason for this absence of bhakti in these six chapters is that they are

'Brahmanical' or they talk about the acquisition of true knowledge of the individual self as being immortal and of the 'stuff' of Brahman.37

However, it is interesting and most important that it is in verse 4.3, that bhaj, the root of the word bhakti, and in 4.1 the concept of God's love to a 'bhakto' (loyal friend with , bhakti) are introduced for the first time in the Gita. It is also noteworthy that both bhakto and bhakti come from the lips of Krishna Himself to His human friend Arjuna to reveal the highest mystery, that God can love a human being as a friend. Friendship between , God and human beings is a mystery vastly unknown before the time of the Gita.

Although the epic Mahabharata contains this mystery, as the container of the Gita, this mystery of love is not explained as well as it is in the Gita. Perhaps, since the didactic dialogues of Krishna about bhakti and theism had been dropped in the anuGita, had to bring them back more emphatically in the Gita. Anyhow, just as Atjuna's bhakti develops in stages as he gradually becomes conscious after the great vision (Chapter11), and realizes that his friend Krishna is more than mere man, bhakti too develops centuries

38 after the Gita, as the four margas of Saivism in the south. , 39

Although, according to Zaehner, verses 4. 9-11 sum up the whole teaching of the

Gita;40 yet, because of its vagueness, verse 4.11 that Krishna would return the love of any

37 R. C. Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 243. 38 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 77. The four types of God-Human relationships: as knowledge, friendship, son ship and servanthood, the last being the lowest kind. Knowledge comes to the privileges from study of science, art and the Vedic-Upanishadic texts; friendship comes by control of the senses, breaths and the mind and also knowledge of gods; sonship comes with worshipping God with flower, water, prayer, song and worship; servanthood comes by service to saints and attending to temple needs. In this passage, Arjuna, a can only be a friend- the second grade relationship. 39 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 181, n: the semantics of bhaj and bhakti. 40 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 185-86, n; 175 n. The whole teaching of the Gita is summed up in 4. 9-11. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 25 bhakta who worships Him in whatever way has been the most misunderstood and misinterpreted verse in all of the Gita. This passage has been interpreted to mean that polytheism is acceptable to Krishna; "whatever their occupation" is made to mean that

Krishna condones social and occupational vertical-hierarchy of varnashrama dharma. Its vagueness regarding whom to worship and how to worship gives people unlimited freedom without the guidal'lce to use the freedom to make wise decisions: whether to worship One God or many Gods or which of the many gods; and how polytheism, the caste system, occupational vertical-hierarchy, and conditional love of God are all permissible only to those bhaktas who would willingly conform to, God's will and follow

~ in His foot-steps. How does someone follow in His footsteps if that man or woman worships another God? Does Krishna not care about their subjection to social injustices?

What is the necessity for the One Absolute God to be so restrained? The way this verse offers positives and negatives on the same platter, makes one wonder if it is an interpolation by some pundit of another faith to disrupt the strength of monotheism, which is new at this time of the Gita, and to mislead individuals away from God.

As the table above shows (p.20), the word bhakti is not mentioned even once in chapter 5. Zaehner says that if bhakti, and personal God should be absent, this chapter is a Brahmavadin's (who reveres Brahman) interpolation.41 Zaehner is right in thinking so because the chapter is about sannyasa yogam or from the world, an Advaitin concept, contrary to bhakti, which is to live in the world and yet not be of the world. The

Gita explains detachment in the first six chapters and reverses and overrides it progressively with attachment in the next six chapters.

41 Dhavamony, Love of God, 77. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 26

Nor does bhakti occur in chapter 6 as it deals with dhyana yogam (spiritual meditation, which is an elaboration of chapter 5) except in two important verses on bhakti at the end of chapter six (6.31; 47), both of which are about the 'athlete of the spirit,' who loves and honours God. The final verse of chapter six (47) links the integrated athlete with the God of chapter seven, which inaugurates the entire theistic midsection of the

Gila (chapters 7-12). Verses 31 and 47 are clarified in detail below.

Zaehner calls 6.31 the climax of the chapter, where Krishna defines athlete of the spirit as the fully integrated man of faith, who, already fully liberated and purified in

Nirvana, should approach God, Krishna Himself, with love-and-honour (bhakti), in order to have fellowship with Him and abide in Him forever (salvatioQ.).42 This verse speaks about the inmost self (antaratma), meaning the deepest part of the heart, mind, body, and soul. God will indwell that human being (temple) which is filled with love of God

(bhakti). Knowledge of the true self-in-itself precedes knowledge of the Self, the Lord. 43

This is the point of departure from the Buddhist ideal of Nirvana and Brahmanism that is

Nirvana too to the Personal God. 44

We can describe the middle portion of the Gita (chapters 7-12) as the highest concentration of bhakti verses: 30 out of a total of 48 bhakti verses - contained chiefly in chapters 7, 9 and 12. This portion is decidedly theistic; it gives the attributes of God, identifies Krishna as God, and reveals Him in his majesty. Here, He is not no longer the object of meditation (yoga) as in the first six chapters, but rather the object of love and

42 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 234 n, 237 n. The exact nuance of the word bhaj is too early in our present context. It seems to be participation in and abiding in God here. 43 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 237- 38 n; 242 n. "Lord" is the highest title for Krishna in the Gita. 44 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 242 n. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 27

surrender (bhakti). Here, the integrated yogin 'participates' with God, but not assimilated

into God.

Chapter 7, which is chiefly about the yoga of wisdom and experience, the two natures of

God, discusses four kinds of worshippers (bhaktas), their objects of worship by faith and

instinct - gods, ghosts, ancestors and Krishna, - and their final destinations (7.20-23):

those who worship other ~ods would receive finite rewards and rebirths from their

divinities while those who 'love-and-worship Krishna alone' would attain permanent

moksha. 'Undivided love to One God' is celebrated as 'ananya-bhakti' (an+anya is

ananya, which means 'no other') or strict monotheism. Although ananya-bhakti is , demanded by Krishna, who claims Himself to be higher than the 1mperishable-Supreme-

Brahman (akshara-param-Brahman 8.3) and other objects of worship, monotheism is

neither insisted upon by the Gita nor developed by Hinduism to this day - I wonder why.

The eighth chapter begins with the question, who is That Brahman, defines the

undefinable in different ways, aksharam (imperishable), paramam (highest), adhiyatmam

(primeval), avyaktam (unmanifest) etc (8.3, 18) and gives the yogic theory that the

immortal essence of the Self could be realized independently of God. Surprisingly, it has four significant verses that dependence on the all-pervading, primeval, exalted, personal

God Krishna alone, who is the unmanifest beyond the unmanifest imperishable Brahman

(8.20, 21), one can have subsistence and imperishable final goal (8. 10, 21- 22) through bhakti. Thus the Gita promises that any dying person who bears Krishna in mind would be led to God. Although strength of mind and integrated yogic exercise are good too, they cannot, independently, lead to God without bhakti, which is itself an integrating force.

Here too the Gita advocates for God, pointing one to that God who is greater than the GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 28 greatest imperishable Brahman (8. 3, 21), who can be 'easily gained' by simple ananya- bhakti or 'love-and-worship' that are directed to 'none-other' (8.22).

Although Chapter 9 is traditionally called the Yoga of Royal Knowledge and Royal

Mystery, in fact, having the highest number of verses (ten) on bhakti, it is predominantly of love and devotion.45 Krishna re-iterates what He has already stated in chapter 7; but whereas in 7.20-23 He said,that He actually strengthened the faith of the worshippers of other gods, though their goals remained finite, here in 9.20-25 He goes a further step and states that all worship is really directed to Himself, even if the worshipper may not realize it. He brings new attainments and possession promised to those who 'meditate on Him, no other,' who honor Him by continual meditation (9.22). He repe"ats in 7.23, that while the devotees of the gods go to their gods according to their Nature, 46 all those who worship Him shall come to Him and be with God forever (9.25). God accepts any offering willingly, be it a leaf or flower or fruit or water that a zealous soul gives with love's devotion (9. 26). He wants all action, all food, sacrifice, alms or penance to be offered up to Him (9. 27). Superseding the Vedic sacrifice and Upanishadic good works

(BU IV. 4-5), the Gita teaches disinterested action as sacrifice and duty (3.9; 17.11).

Thus one's action could be sacrifice and duty to God: means and end (9.27).47

Krishna, however, is impartial to all, as is Brahman, and He is indifferent to dualities in the same way as the perfected athlete is; but in reciprocating bhakti, (loving devotion and communion with the divine) and subsisting in the beloved, He transcends the 'fixed, still state of Brahman.' We are presented with a philosophical puzzle, viz., whether all

45 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 273. 46 The sattvikas sacrifice to gods, the rajasas to sprites and monsters, and the tamasas to the dead, each according to their dominant constituent of Nature: 17.4. 47 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 283, n. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 29 contingent beings subsist in God or whether bhakti opens up a new dimension of love, by which God abides in His lovers, and they in Him, in disinterested love as in Agape. There can be no 'isolation' of the eternal element in the human as in the Sankhya system, or of the 'fixed still state of Brahman,' but instead, the bhakta has a complete and personal indwelling of God, who can only be experienced by the human being who has already achieved liberation (9. 29).4;8

However evil a person's occupation may be, [such as hunting or robbery], if he worships Krishna with love and serves no other, he shall be transformed, changed by

God's love, or reckoned as good, for his resolve to change is right 49. Here too loyalty to ,

~ One God is insisted upon (9.30). The promise that no one who 'exists in Me' (Bhavati, becomes) with loyalty-and-love shall be lost (9. 31) is unlike the Vedic religious dharma that was not open to the base-born: women, artisans and serfs. The Bhakti religion promises acceptance and blessings to all irrespective of caste, occupation, or gender even as Buddhism does.

However, verse 9.32 is a problem: It is not very gracious of the Lord to label the low castes that He had created, as base-born or born of sinful women; it is derogatory language similar to 5.18 where , cow, elephant, dog and dog-eater (outcaste) are equal in the sight of the wise. If all these people were equal, why were they not told to intermarry, and why did they have to continue to do their own caste duties? Why did the

Lord not forbid castes at this stage? Instead, He says that it was He who had created castes (4.13). This contradiction makes some commentators to suspect that these three verses (4.13; 5.18; 9.32) may be interpolations by the uppermost caste - at a much later

48 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 285, n. 49 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 285, n: Zaehner refers to Mary Magdalene's conversion by Christ. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 30 date, some centuries after Vyasa had written the Gita, for he could not have written this with his egalitarian pen.

There is an interesting argument in 9.33, where Krishna turns the tables on the so-called high-caste Brahmanists and invites them too to worship Him: Krishna now addresses the

'pure and good' Brahmins who 'practice' rituals faultlessly, and the princely sages who have the 'theoretical knowledge' of devoted love, and suggests to them both to combine their theory and practice into the praxis of bhakti. He asks them that if these evil castes and women whom they consider to be lower could so easily tread the highest path of bhakti and attain salvation (9.30, 32), would it not be easier for, the Brahmin and the

~ Kshatrya too to commune with Him in love, as they too are born in th same impermanent, joyless world with these vulgar people (9. 33)? But the logical question would be to ask why Krishna did not tell the wise to treat all people equally, not to perpetuate the existence such evil castes.

The next verse (9.34) is a most important verse in which Krishna invites the most integrated-athlete-become-Brahman to come to God, in this life, by knowing, loving and worshipping Him. Integration is essential for the 'highest form of bhakti' (para-bhakti), and one need not postpone bliss to the . Since I am the Self of all beings and the highest way, come to Me with all your works, your sacrifice, your whole heart, mind, will and efforts; you will surely reach Me. On this single verse, Zaehner writes four pages

(286-90) of explication. 50

Traditionally and appropriately, Chapter 10 is called the chapter of the "Far-Flung

Power and Glory" or the of God. Here Krishna is a Guru to Arjuna teaching him

50 Jesus' greatest Commandment was 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself' (Mark 12. 29). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 31 all about Himself. Chapter 10 is the script while chapter 11 is the . VerselO.lO combines both integration and bhakti as described earlier in 9.34. Integration is communing fully with God in love, for the goal, now, is God Himself beyond the fixed still state of Brahman which is Nirvana too (2.39-40; 49-72); this emphasis on God and bhakti will recur in 18.51-54. So our athlete must move outward towards God. This outward step is necessary because neither Brahman nor the state of 'Brahman-become'

(brahma-bhuta) is final (18. 54), although Brahman manifests itself in the outside world of phenomena and in the still center of the liberated self (14.27): however, the 'Personal

God' is the ground (base) of the immortal changeless Brahman (2.16; 14.27).51 This new metaphysical proposition of a great reversal of status between 137p,hman and Krishna is briefly reviewed here.

There is a growing assertion of the superiority of the personal God over the impersonal Brahman in the Bhagavad-Gita. In the beginning, only Brahman is shown as the sacrifice (4.24) but later it reveals God alone as the recipient and Lord of the sacrifice

(9.24: 5.29); Brahman is the fixed still state which is the natural habitat of the liberated self, it is also material Nature, and the individual spiritual monads or selves of the

Sankhya system; Brahman is the whole kingdom of time and eternity of which God alone is the king. Krishna is in no great hurry to reveal Himself as the God of Gods until the cosmic vision in 11.13. Even in 13.12-17, the 'highest Brahman seems to be identical with Krishna Himself, or at least as His body; the fixed still state of Brahman, the

Nirvana that is Brahman too (2.72).

But, rather suddenly, there is radical reversal in the metaphysical status of the two entities, Brahman and Krishna. The paradigmatic change is clearly seen when Krishna

51 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 397, n. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 32 announces that it is He, the personal God, who plants His seed in Brahman who is His womb (14.3); hence God is the base supporting Brahman and therefore the whole world as He is also the base of the eternal law of and absolute beatitude (13.27).

Whereas Brahman is established in the hearts of all (15.15), now, it is the personal God, who is in the hearts of all (14. 27; 18.61; 16.18). Although right from the beginning and all the way through the Gita, Krishna is shown to be better and higher than Brahman,

Krishna reveals the Truth about Himself and His exclusive claims above Brahman only in the end that He, the personal God alone could stand independently of, and higher than, the imperishable, unmanifest Brahman (14. 18), as He is the, Uttamah purusha, the

~ sublime sustainer of the three worlds; no other should be worshipped except Krishna

Himself, as there is no other way to salvation than Krishna. Thus, finally, the highest

Brahman of the Upanishads is transcended by the personal God, Krishna, who claims all titles of superiority to Himself (15. 15-17) as the superman who will give salvation to the bhakta who understands the mysterious doctrine He, Krishna has revealed (15.20).

This shining lamp of God's-wisdom (10.11) is kept burning like a flickerless flame in a windless place (6.19): it is God's grace that enlightens the total personality, and it is the same grace that keeps it unflickering.52 This verse (10.11) speaks of the grace of God, that dispels ignorance with God's lamp-of-wisdom (jnana-dipa), not the love of God or human bhakti.53 Two Sanskrit words, anukampa (10.11) and prasada (18.62; 73) are used for "grace" in only these three verses of the Gita for God's grace given to the integrated bhaktas. Although integration is a pre-condition for communion with God, it is God

52 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 294-95. By grace alone: 294. 53 The Title page of this essay bears the Title in the form of a Lamp of Wisdom that bums by the oil of God's grace with the wick of bhakti(6.19, 10.11). 'The word of God is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path' (Psalm 119: 105); Christ said that he is the light of the world (Matthew 9: 12). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 33 alone who gives integration to the -yogis through their bhakti: thus buddhi and bhakti are tightly spun together. Grace is a new concept in the Gita, almost non-existent in the Upanishads, as we saw earlier.

To be 'Brahman still' (2.72: Brahma-sthitih or Brahma-Nirvana) is a state of bhakti, but at a lower level, which comes by a long and tedious process of obtaining knowledge which helps toward the winl}ing of liberation. This process is allowed, and made possible, for only a few of the privileged class. The individual who has become Brahman (ayam brahman asmi) has still to reach the highest level that perfects liberation itself by drawing close to the personal God and possessing Him in His fullness by knowing Him as He is

((9.26-28; 18.55).

How does this liberation happen? Pleasantly and surprisingly, it is reached easily and forthwith by ananya bhakti, i.e., the love and loyalty to God alone. So our athlete of the

Spirit must once again move forward and draw nigh to God. The game-changes that take place in moving forward from Brahman-to-God and moksha-by-grace are presented in

18. 51-54; 55-56. Saivism, Vaishnavism and Christianity emphasize our human need of

God's grace even to hold on to Him by bhakti, for our best human hold is feeble. 54

Now we come to chapter eleven in search of bhakti which is given a separate division

(2.ii) in this thesis n order to emphasize its centrality for the Gita. It is central because, it is essentially the spiritual climax of the Gita, where two monumental take place in the cosmic vision of God's awesome, terrifying majesty, the Visvarupa, the mysterium tremendum: Revelation of Krishna Himself as the Supreme God, and

54 Chit Bhavananda, The BhagavadGita: translation and Commentary, (535). Thejnana-dipa {'light of wisdom' of God removes the darkness of ignorance by 'grace alone,' not even by bhakti or human wisdom. With God's light, man sees God in his heart. This is in line with the Christian thought on the grace of God. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 34 revelation of bhakti-marga as the only path (11.53) which will lead His bhaktas to intimacy with Him (11.54) and to their final salvation. (11.55). The God of the actual vision is prefigured in the chapter before (10), whose tempo is built up in crescendo towards the vision of chapter eleven, and the flood-gates of the vision are turned into the following chapter (12), the whole of which is about Isvara-bhakti and the bhakta.

The purport of this vision is to introduce Krishna in his human avatar as the Supreme , God, even above the supreme Brahman. Thus theism enters into existence in chapter 11 of the Gita with powerful fanfare. If people want to see God as He really is, is there a way to achieve such a vision? Can others have such a direct divine revelation of God as

Arjuna had? Yes, what is unavailable to gods, is available to hUlllans, but not by Vedic sacrifices, ascetic practices or works such as giving alms (12.53); instead, it can be availed only by worship of love (bhakti) addressed to the personal God, Krishna alone, none other; for, love of God excludes all other loves. So once again, Krishna wants ananya-bhakti (11.54), i.e., monotheism and loving worship of one God, Krishna

Himself. Even better, these bhaktas have special privileges: they can enter into Him, which indicates a more personal intimacy, known as sayujya (the highest form of loving relationship between God and the bhakta). 55

Chapter eleven of the great vision (visvarupa) closes with a 'chiasmic' (double- opposite-injunction): 'be attached to Me in loyal-love,' and 'be cut off from all other attachments.' The Gita advises 'to be totally attached to God and totally detached from all worldly attachments, which is an important step in one's spiritual growth. The total detachment of the self from the world in the first six chapters of the Gita is reversed and

55 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 320, n. Loving intimacy with God is pure love, somewhat comparable to what we read in the Song of Songs of Solomon in the Bible. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 35 filled by a total attachment to God in the next six chapters. Attachment of the mind with

God comes forcefully in 7.1 at the opening of the second section, and is elevated to a fearful climax in chapter 11 and idyllic peaceful love at the very end of the Gita (! 8.64-

65), as the most mysterious doctrine of love.

Chapter 12, traditionally and appropriately called the yoga of loving devotion, evaluates the three , bhakti, jnt;ma and karma, and elevates bhakti above both jnana and karma, but without rejecting either of them.

Exclusive devotion to God is increasingly insisted upon in the latter half of the Gita as it is here in chapter 12: (8. 14, 22: 9. 13, 22, 30: 11. 54: 13. 10-11), despite positively encouraging worship of other gods. "Whatever form, whatever gd'd, a devotee with faith desires to honor, that very faith do I confirm in him making it unswerving and secure" because the worshipper attains union with what is worshipped (7. 21); and doing so he really worships Him; He reveals (9. 23), however, the end cannot be Krishna, if the means is not towards Him.

Chapter 12 is entirely dedicated to the news (God and bhakti) announced in chapter 11.

Its very first verse is a comparison between those who love Krishna and those who revere

Brahman, where a clear statement is made by Krishna [answering Arjuna] that His own bhaktas are more experienced athletes of the spirit than those who 'revere' the

Imperishable, Unmanifest Brahman because He gives his devotees the integration of the self (buddhi yoga), by which they may draw nigh to Him (10.10). The God-given integration of the self makes room for love of God, which draws the self out of its 'fixed still state' into an emotional relation with the transcendent God, 'the other Self' 56. After

56 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 322, n. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 36 all, was it not by the grace of Krishna that Arjuna had the great vision in answer to his prayer to see God's glory? In other words, even the wisdom that is necessary to make the right decision to love God comes from God, by His grace, which is an essential teaching of Saivism, Vaishnavism, and Christian theology. Only God can give the highest bhakti, the 'lamp of wisdom,' which dispels the remaining darkness of ignorance of those athletes too, who revere Brahman that they too reach God's home (10.11). Bhakti

(devotional love of God) is an indispensable pre-requisite to moksha. 57

Krishna insists that He would be honoured if dhyana-yoga (yoga of meditation) and abhyasa-yoga (of spiritual exercise) controlling the mind leave ,no room for other gods

~ and other goals than Himself alone (12.6); this is another instance where the Gita calls attention to ananya-bhakti-monotheism. Those whose thoughts are fixed on Me alone will be lifted out of the ocean of samsara to enter Me, their home, moksha (12. 7-8).

Bhakti yoga is the best road to God. Verses 8-12 of chapter 12 show how bhakti yoga

(emotional stirring up of the soul), is the best, easiest, and the most direct way to find one's home in God (12.8). All the other yogas, jnana (learning the scriptures), dhyana

(concentrated meditation) and sannyasa (renunciation) are harder to perform than bhakti.

Karma yoga (performance of works) such as giving of alms, building of temple, etc. manual services at the temple - such as cleaning - or even renouncing the fruit of one's works is harder to perform and is lower in value than any of the above yogas. Besides, even the most perfectly performed yoga of any kind is incomplete if it is not complemented by bhakti (12.8-12).

57 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 326, n; 295, n. Love of God comes by wisdom of God, and the wise love God. God in the self might be called 'the highest wisdom' corresponding to the 'highest love-and-Ioyalty' to God mentioned in 18. 54. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 37

Krishna's 'song of love' (12.14-20) shows his exuberant, inestimable love for His

loving devotee who loves Him well in specific ways. The phrase, "my beloved man"

occurs six times in seven verses (12.14-20): 'my loving devotee' is my 'beloved;' the

liberated man is my 'beloved;' my 'devotee' who gives up .. .is 'my beloved;' I 'love' the

man who hates not nor exults; the man who is 'loyal-devoted-and devout;' 'devotee' who

gives up the fruit of his work; 'my beloved;' I 'love' the 'man-who-loves-Me' ... he is 'my beloved.' As well, these same verses are replete with words related to bhakti too: 'loyal,'

'devoted' and 'devout;' The chapter ends by saying that He loves exceedingly those loving-devotees who reverence and believe the deathless words ,of righteousness He has 'II spoken just now, and make Him their goal-(12.20). Bhakti needs the trust that God is able to do what He promises to do, and faith in God that fuels that trust. Love as "inter- penetration" of the hearts of God and the bhakta is sacred, not profane. Zaehner interprets the above as "I love the man" in the active voice, while Chit Bhavananda interprets "sa me priya" in the passive voice as "he is my beloved.,,58

Having climbed the lower peaks in chapters 7, 9 and 12, we are ready to climb to the highest peak of love situated in the last chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita (18). As chapters

13-17 treat miscellaneous topics, such as the three constituents, the three kinds of yogas, the three kinds of faith, etc, but in 13.18 and 15.19 the Gita guarantees Krishna's own mode of being (salvation) to the man who loves-and-worships Him.

In this context, one can picture Krishna as sitting in His Himalayan seat as a guru

(teacher) with His banner of love flying over Him, and his song of love floating around

58 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 329-331. Chit Bhavananda, The BhagavadGita, 657-68. The Bible speaks of God's love in the active voice, e.g., "I have loved you with an everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31. 3); "you love each other as 1 have loved you" (John 13. 34). Stephen Neill also remarks about this difference in the BhagavadGita. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 38

Him in the cool air, with young Arjuna, the graduating student sitting slightly lower, in the Upanishadic fashion, receiving his final mysterious secret mantra or maha-vakya

(great word) before going into the world. The Gita' s final chapter (18) contains the essential secret of the Gita, the Gita-Rahasya "I love you dearly" (ishto'si me drdham:

18.64). This most mysterious doctrine of Salvation encapsulates two concepts, bhakti and prasada (love and grace): ~he human being's love for God through bhakti, and God's reciprocating love for the human being by prasada (grace).

However, the Gita also stipulates who must not be taught the loving message of the

Gita, as well as those who alone should be. Krishna commands that this secret word must never be told to those who are not austere, have no love-and-loyalty for Him, who refuse to obey Him, or Him (18. 67). But, indeed, whoever shall proclaim this highest mystery to His loving devotees showing all the while the highest love-and-Ioyalty to Him will surely come to Him (18. 68), and no one on earth can render Him more pleasing service or be more beloved to Him than these (18. 69). Protecting the good and destroying the evil-doers is seen earlier too, in the famous verses (4.7-8), where Krishna says,

Whenever the law of unrighteousness withers away and lawlessness arises, then do I generate Myself [on Earth]. (4.7)

For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for setting up of the law of righteousness I come into being age after age. (4.8).

As Arjuna comes out of his doubts by God's grace [he is converted], and is ready to obey Krishna's command to tell all bhaktas about God's love,' he is thrilled with joy. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 39

Thus the Krishna-Arjuna-dialogue closes with a high note of grace (18.73) and its epilogue ends in the traditional way with thrills of joy and blessings. (18.76-78). 59

Having established the hypothesis that bhakti is the essence of the Gita, by its own verses, we will now go to the climax of bhakti as visualized in the vision in chapter 11.

59 The word "grace" occurs only three times in the Gita; and every time it is used as God's grace to the bhakta, whereas the word "bhakti" or related words occur about 40 times as from the bhakta to God. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 40

2. 2. CHAPTER ELEVEN OF THA GITA THE CLIMAX OF THE GITA: THE DIVINE VISION 60

61 R. C. Zaehner calls chapter 11 of the BhagavadGita, "The cosmic vision of

Arjuna", while calls it the "Cosmic Awareness," where one

experiences the whole creation in a tiny grain of sand; Chit Bhavananda calls it Krishna's

"Yoga of the Cosmic Vision,,,62 and Radhakrishnan names it the "Lord's

• Transfiguration." It is a where God speaks to man face to face.

The author of the Gita, whether Vyasa or Bhadarayana opens the chapter with the

words 'supreme mystery,' (paramam guhyam-sanjnitam) which provokes the reader to

ask, "What is the mystery?" That mystery concerns His infinite glory and power (vibhuti-

yoga), which is actually veiled in chapter 10 in the verbal description given by Krishna to

Atjuna. 63 That same secret knowledge will be unveiled now to Arjuna in the 'Cosmic

Awareness' (samagrata yoga) in chapter 11. In other words, just as Arjuna will be able to

"learn how to recognize the Great Brahma-Deva (Krishna) who pervades the countless

small objects in the universe, so also will the readers learn to see God first in the gross elements and then in the subtle ones, first in the simple, then in the complex". 64

60 2.2: I wrote this Essay on Chapter Eleven as an assignment for the Graduate Degree Philosophy Program. 61 Zaehner, The BhagavadGita: With a Detailed CommentaryFrom Original Sources, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973),303-320. 62 Chit Bhavananda, Srimad BhagavadGita: Text in Sanskrit, Hindi and Tamil and Detailed Commentary in Tamil (Trichy: Tapovanam Press, 1966),580-642. "Yoga" means union, yoking or discipline. Here the yoga displays God's one vast form which encloses everything in the universe. 63 Psalml9. 1: The heavens proclaim the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

64 Vinoba Bhave, Talks On the Gita (Madras: Thompson & Co, 1958), 148. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 41

Radhakrishnan sees this as the immanence and the of God. 65 Zaehner interprets the context as Arjuna not being contented with the marvelous verbal account of the Self, now asks to let him literally see the form of the divine glory (rupam-aisvaram), the eternal genuine Isvara-Self with his own eyes. This sounds like Thomas, a disciple of

Jesus, who said that he would not accept the verbal report of the other disciples of having seen the resurrected Jesus unless he himself could actually see, and touch, Jesus.66

It is normal, for Arjuna, to desire to see the majesty of the supreme form of the supreme source of everything (11. 2- 3). But because of the material film ('net') caused by the attractions of the senses obscuring his human wisdom, he cannot see God with his natural prakriti eyes. 67 So Krishna has to provide him with divin~ eyes (divyam-caksuh) to see Him. Given divine eyes, Arjuna can now see Him as Space and Time in the awesome display of Krishna's Universal Form (visvarupa-darsana): the space of the universe is His body; He is Himself Time (Kalan), past, present and future, in which

Arjuna is but the occasion; He is also Kalagni (Doomsday-fire). He sees the soldiers on the battlefield already destroyed like moths in a flame, even before the has started.

But what is the real mystery that Krishna had promised to reveal? The mystery is the identity of God: Krishna, his erstwhile human playmate and friend, Krishna, his charioteer now - is God. Hearing this mystery, Arjuna is stunned, surprised, astonished,

65 S. Radhakrishnan, The BhagavadGita (London: George Allen &Unwin Ltd, 1957, 1989),256.

66 John 20: 25: "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, I will not believe." But when Jesus appeared when Thomas was with the other apostles, and was invited to touch his wounds, even without touching him he believed, and cried out, "My Lord, and my God!"

67 Swami Nikilananda, The Upanishads (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963), 137: Svetasvatara 5,3: The non-Self, or physical element, consisting of body, mind senses, and prana is called a 'net' because it entraps the soul and entangles it in the world; and Zaehner comments, "God's creative activity (maya) is seen as a 'veil' between the individual self and the divine essence" (7. 12-14, p. 16). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 42

amazed and flabbergasted beyond words and out of his wits. It is then he asks, "Who are

you? (11.31) The answer is "I AM Kalan. 68 "The microcosm that is sitting with him in

the chariot is the macrocosm, God. The Gita is singling out Krishna as God and elevating him as the primeval God of gods (deva-ati-deva), the One among the many: a

monumental change of paradigm in the religious from this time.69

The many mouths of Ihara swallowed the of the Vedas, Upanishads, orthodox philosophies such as Sankhya, Yoga, and of the heterodox ones such as

Buddhism, and also Monism, Advaita and others. As they converged into the mouths, some of the trends were pulverized, synthesized and harmonized, intellectually and

~ rationally into a personalized monism of the Gita; while some akin to Advaita were rejected and superseded, others such as Vaishnavism were assimilated. Christian doctrine of salvation by the unconditioned grace of God also can be seen within the 'Gita-yogam': if the Gita is dated around the beginning of the Christian era, it would be possible for the doctrines of the Christian teaching to have infiltrated into India. It is noteworthy that

'Grace' (), a vital word in the Gita, never found in the Vedas and the Upanishads, is used for the first time.7o

The Gita, thus being a selectively inclusive philosophy, it has no problem in using terminology and concepts of these other and philosophies that people were already

68 Name of God is important to the devotee. In his "Burning Bush Vision" asks the same question, "Who are you?" and the answer is "I Am That I am." Jesus said I am the light of the world, I am the good shepherd, I am the Truth, Resurrection and Life etc.

69 'Mystery of God' is seen in the Bible too: Colossians 1: 26-27; 2: 2 " .. .in order that they [the Gentiles] may know the mystery of God, namely, Jesus Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."

70 Only in the very last verse (6. 23) ofthe Svetasvatara the word 'kripa' (for 'bhakti') appears for the first time in the whole of the Upanishads; even here it occurs in the devotional sense. "Guru-kripa-vihaya brahma-vidya durlabhati" i.e., 'without the Guru's 'grace,' knowledge of the Absolute is rarely possible. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 43

familiar with at its time, as they were, or changing the meanings or giving them new

meanings and uses. Brahman, Atman, Self, prakriti and purusha are a few examples. So

Krishna is called Purushothaman (the ideal, perfect man). "As part of a different

tradition, it had no difficulty to draw on a far larger reality of beliefs and practices than

the Upanishads which remain tied to the Vedic tradition of sacerdotalism.,,71 This is an

example of Hinduism's clai}TI of toleration of other religions, which is its ability to take

in, absorb and assimilate them until they, like rivers running into the ocean, lose their

individual identities and become inseparably one with it. Buddhism is said to be one such faith that was absorbed into it with a friendly embrace. , Zaehner calls this chapter the "climax" of the Gita,none ~of the great mystical passages of world literature. It captures the majesty as well as the awesome power of the

Cosmic Reality as much as can be communicated by words, or like to the ear. The poetry is comparable to some of the Vaishnava or Saiva religious love songs and to the poetry of the Song of Solomon. It conveys its purpose by means of a vision and a vivid dialogue between the divine and the human personalities. But there is more here than poetic fancy, the nature of God in the person of Krishna. It is similar to what Rudolf Otto calls, mysterium tremendum et jascinans, a tremendous terrifying mystery, which is not fascinating or charming 73 until the enchanting grace returns in the human form of his friend Krishna. would call it "a discourse from one warrior to another, even

71 Eliot Deutsch and Rohit Dalvi (Ed), The Essential : A New Source Book ofAdvaita Vedanta (Indiana, USA: 2004, World Wisdom), 60.

72 Zaehner, The BhagavadGita, (London: Oxford University Press, 1978),303. 73 Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (London: Oxford University Press, 1923), 1-5,97. Otto coins the word "numinous" for the ineffable religious experience, which is beyond human rationality: there is a creaturely terror and also ajoy in the presence of the Holy. Arjuna, who experiences terror viewing the cosmic vision experiences joy when Krishna changes from the Vishnu-Narayana with four hands and thousand mouths to the dark skinned friend with two hands. In the 18th chapter Krishna is not terrifying but charming, so the bhakta is joyful in the presence of the gracious God. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 44 if one of them would be discovered to be God himself.,,74 The Holy God is terrifying but the other side of his image is ineffable love and measureless grace.

Chapter eleven is of the greatest importance to the Gita because it discloses its greatest mystery, (Gita rahasya inl1.l) through a terrifying vision of God, with a charming verbal display of God's power and majesty by His 'gracious favor'

(anugrahaya paramam) in 'chapter ten. The author has an ingenious, poetic, attractive way of doing his tremendous job, and the Sanskrit language lends him the precise words and colourful phrases to describe 'eyes' and 'vision': 'lotus-petal-eyed Krishna'

(' kamala-pattra-aksha', in 11.2), 'divine eyes' (divyam caksus in, 11. 8), 'see' (drashtam, in 11. 3,4, 7 and 8), or 'behold' (pasya, in 11. 5, 6, 7, 8), and he repeats these words in a kaleidoscopic manner. Of all these words, the one most pertaining to this essay is,

'behold' ('pasya') that gives us the clue to what Krishna was inviting Arjuna to behold.

The word 'behold' (pasya) is used in the four verses 5, 6, 7, and 8, where Krishna tells Arjuna each time to behold something different. First, in verse 5, it is to 'behold' His million (infinite) splendid forms; secondly, in verse 6, to 'behold' the superior beings such as gods and in relationship with Krishna; thirdly, in verse 7, to 'behold' the

'whole universe of multiple' mouths and eyes (aneka-vaktra-nayanam) united in His

'One body', and, finally, in verse 8, to behold His Lordly Yoga. So let us behold too the 75 four important aspects of Arjuna's 'experience' of the immense Transfiguration. Som P.

Ranchan also divides this chapter into the same four units.76

74 Deutsch and Dalvi (Ed), The Essential Vedanta, 60. 75 Robert N. Minor et aI., Compiler, Arvind Sharma New Essays in the BhagavadGita: Philosophical, Methodological and Cultural Approaches, (New Delhi and University of Sydney, Australia: Books & Books, 1987), 42. 76 Som P. Ranchan, Revisioning Gita, (New Delhi: Konrak Publishers, 1991),40: This is an expository and interpretative attempt to elucidating the Gila, and also going into the problematic of the Gila using psychology, literature and philosophy. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 45

Until verse 31, where Arjuna asks, "who are you?" and Krishna reveals Himself,

Arjuna does not know what this vision was meant to do. Pending his recognition in verse

41 that Krishna, the prince and his comrade, is God, he did not know about His

majesty; and now he is distraught and begs His forgiveness for playing and jesting with

Him as an equal. The next five verses (42-46) are Arjuna's description of the attributes of

God that he 'beholds' in Krishna. The vision is useless unless God reveals the meaning.

In this chapter Arjuna testifies that the person he sees in this mystical vision is rupam

isvaram of the authentic (sakshath) exact Vishnu-Krishna himself that he wanted to see, not any other: because it pertains to His own Self (adhyatmam 11. 1), His endless Self

(avyayam, tvam atmanam (11. 1-2) and the Yogesvara's creative pbwer, which is maya or prakriti (11. 4) that belongs to Vishnu. He saw exactly what he wanted to see. However, later, terrified, he longs to see Krishna's gentle loving form (saumya) again. We saw earlier, in verses 5-8, that Arjuna saw four groups of things in the cosmic vision; now let us see the details of each of the four groups.

The first "Behold" (pasya): (6.5; 9-14) In verse 5, Krishna says to Arjuna, "Behold my millions of divine forms in infinite color and shape," (sataso-sahasra-sah is hundreds of thousands), or in effect, infinite forms, and in verses 9 to 14, testifies to

Dhridharashtra that the Maha Yogesvaran, (Vishnu) has revealed to Arjuna His universal highest sovereign form adorned with his own peculiar vestures. This form was an auspicious sight (adbhuta darsanam) that consisted of numberless mouths and eyes, divine garlands, jewels, robes and weapons; there was exquisite fragrance coming out of his anointing; every aspect of it was wonderful (ascharyam) in every way; the radiance of

Krishna's Universal Form was brighter than a thousand suns rising together. Just as the GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 46 sun, Vishnu's symbol has no comparison, Vishnu also has no comparison, but He is a thousand times superior, and He alone is Mahatma. The vision that Arjuna 'beheld' was

'the One single form (body) of God' in which 'the whole wide world of wonderful forms' of multiplicity had converged. At full realization of seeing God, his kshatriya senses bursting with amazement, his mind and self steeped in reverence, he showed his creaturely subjectivity by bending his head low and greeting God loudly in ecstasy.

The second pasya (11.6) is taken up again in verses 11.15-20: Sanjaya, the narrator, repeats that Arjuna did see the Visva Rupa only in general, but not its exact beginning, middle or end, for it was far too big to see its whole. And yet, seeing, in it the authentic

~ symbols of Vishnu-Narayana's crown, wheel and club, Arjuna identified in it the imperishable, endless and changeless, primeval Person, the guardian of the eternal

(sanatana) dharma, the foundation, support and home of the entire world ('jagan- nivasa '), Vishnu, who is the vast immeasurable space between heaven and earth, the highest Self. The whole Visva-rupa is entirely that of the Gita, describing the Saguna

Isvara, the personal (male) God with a million auspicious attributes and containing the entire phenomenal world and gods and all other beings within himself and controlling all of them Himself, alone. Here God, Self and purusha are active, powerful and controlling the actions of the prakriti - three males controlling one female. 77

The mystery of the Gita is that the highest Reality is both 'a Person' and 'infinite'; the form of this highest Self is all-encompassing and its forms are eternally related to the activity of the world and of each individual self like Arjuna. All relationships in the created world are eternally controlled and sustained by God. This Reality is the non-

77 Ramesh Patel, Metaphysical Vision in Philosophy o/the Gita), American University Studies Series V, Philosophy; vol. 105), p. 118. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 47

attached Lord of all Nature (purusha) whose lower Nature is the eightfold prakriti and his

'higher Nature' is all : when the body and self come together, life begins. Zaehner

explains, "Each jiva or jiva-bhuta is an individual transmigrating self, a particle of the

divine substance imprisoned in material nature: jiva-bhuta-prakriti" (7. 5); thus every jiva contains both, the higher and lower Natures of God within themselves (womb 7.6),

and God's seed is placed in,that womb; that Brahman is the womb and the personal God

is the seed (14.3). Krishna claims to be the 'origin,' the womb, the primeval seed, the

material cause, the dissolution or end of the whole universe including all people (7.6).78

For the Gita, God, though by definition infinite and indivisible, is none the less , capable of assuming a finite and separate form [avatar]. "Time~am I, who causes the

destruction of the world" (11. 32), and Time itself, like God, is both finite and divisible

from one point of view and infinite and indivisible from another. It is a philosophically

insoluble mystery that particles of God descend into matter and adopt the senses and

mind with which, so long as they remain in matter, are indissolubly identified.79

This Self that Arjuna's vision contained is not the neutral monistic Universal nirguna

Brahman because it is described as masculine Lord, with forms and features like lotus eyes, four shoulders (rupa, kamala-kan, catur-bhuja). Yet, the neutral nirgunas,

Universal (visva 16) infinite (sanatana, 11, 18) and primeval Person (purusha, 18) are the vital key descriptions that complete the sagunas of this vision that pervades in all

directions. It is the two-in-one form: 'nirguna Brahman' and 'saguna Vishnu-Narayana-

Krishnan;' the latter is second to none, the 'highest Brahman' or even the 'mighty

Creator God Brahma' seated on the lotus, as we will see in the next 'pasya.'

78 Zaehner, The BhagavdGita, 246, n for jiva known as "jiva-bhuta." For the idea of God as the origin ofthe world refer to 4.6, 7.6, 9.8 14.3. 79 Zaehner, The BhagavdGita, 364, n: particles of God descending into the jiva bhuta or the avatar. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 48

The second 'Behold' (pasya) (11. 6 and 21- 31) shows that there are other divine beings in relationship to Krishna; but they are all clearly subjected to Him. They come under three separate groups: addressed as Dhritharashtra's sons, their , friends, soldiers, as one group; gods, devas, , etc. as another group, but He alone is God, the Lord, God of gods (deva-deva, 11. 13) and primal God (ati-deva). Thirdly, there are ancestors, sages or perfected saints who are trying to cross the stream to attain Nirvana but He alone is their goal. They all, including Brammah, the creator seated on his lotus, are 'merely parts of His body', His higher Nature 11. 15), all the worlds and Nature

(prakriti) being His lower Nature. Krishna (in 11. 54) says that His devotees should have bhakti, exclusively for Him 'alone', not for any other (ananya) lJeing or god. Thus, by this vision, the author literally and vividly portrays through Arjuna's praises (11. 36-49)

Krishna's own words that every other being or god is 'a minute part of His body'

The Gita has subordinated all gods and beings to Krishna, and they are all terrified to see his mighty form but are praising him (11. 21); they had prayed to Him for such a vision as this but none had ever been granted thus far. 80 The flames that lick the sky reminds one of the Vedic sacrifices that soar up to the sky to take food for the gods and bring back answers to human prayers for mundane blessings, and also the fire at the end of the Times (). Here the Visva-rupa of the vision is not gracious or cool; its ghastly teeth crush the vast numbers of creatures that are brought into the myriad mouths and swallow them as one piece. Even the two armies on the battlefield that are all rushing

80 Luke 10.21-23: "No one knows who the Son is ... except those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" .... Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it" GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 49 through this annihilating machine, which, in real life, any way, are mere puppets tied to a machine called Fate (18.61).

There are a few conflicting issues of God's dharma here. When, even with the celestial eyes, Arjuna cannot see the ghastly vision any longer, cries out to end the cosmic vision and show to him the cool blue form and two hands of Krishna, his friend.

This is a paradoxical picture of the greatest God's mighty power to destroy any and all who are not His; and in contrast, to all His beloved bhaktas, He is their gentle, loving friend (saumya), refuge in time of trouble, and final home (jagan-nivasa (11. 25). He would crush all their enemies even if they are as invincible as ,, or

(for the skull of any who kills these men would burst at the same time), Krishna would kill them on behalf of Arjuna, His dearest friend, for the whole universe is spun at the tip of his finger81 (11.2, 17; 8. 22; 9.2; 18.46), because He himself is the indestructible

(akshara Brahman (11.18), and greater than and beyond the indestructible Brahman; therefore He is tat-param 'That Greatest' (Sv. U.5.l).

However, Krishna, the guardian of the eternal law, evades response to Arjuna's moral dilemmas: pertaining to killing of kith and kin and respected teachers, and performing svakarma, svadharma and Kshatriya-dharma, all of which hang on Varna- dharma or the Caste Law. Krishna, as the author of the four-caste-system (2.42-46), refrains from providing answers to these moral dilemmas or even justifies the customary - and dharma-sastras such as the laws of Manu, which are an integral part of the Hindu society. Krishna instructs Arjuna to stand up, fight and win glory

81 Zaehner, The BhagavdGita, 315, n. Ashrama-dharma is the observance of certain duties by the three upper caste Aryan men in the four stages of their lives: the bachelor attends traditional schools; the house-holder supports religious acts, gives alms and looks after ageing parents; older men leave home to perform pilgrimages or practice austerity in the forest, and the men of the last stage may undertake optional sannyasa GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 50

conquering his enemies (11. 33). We are told, for example, that Arjuna is not allowed to

do somebody else's duty (para-dharma) of the Brahmins as he is not a Brahmin; he is not

exempt from his own Kshatriya job (sva-dharma) on the battlefield. He should not be

'workless' (a-karma) or do para-dharma for, even a para-dharma that is done well (vi-

karma), is without merit. He has no choice but to do sva-dharma (own duty), however

devoid of merit it is. His duty is decided permanently by God according to the three

natural innate gunas he is born with (4.33).

Further, in Krishna's present avatar, as in every avatar of Vishnu, the purpose being

salvation of the bhaktas and destruction of the dhushtas (evil doers), Krishna makes it

clear to Arjuna that Krishna, as the agent, will win the battle, ~but Arjuna being the occasion, 'a mere puppet tied to the wheel of fate,' he could have the honor and fame of the victory, if he would choose to do God's paramount will to fight the battle as a

Kshatriya. In spite of all these mandatory laws regarding duties, Krishna insists that

Arjuna has the freedom to do his own choice (11. 33; 18.59).

The third 'Behold' (pasya) is the invitation to see the whole world (unity of the world) in Krishna's 'body' (11. 7, 32-34). In verse 7, we saw that Arjuna was invited to see the whole world being centered in Krishna, along with all the moving and unmoving things, and whatever else that may be there in His 'body.' His power is over his lower

Nature, prakriti, as in the classical Sankhya and Yoga systems, and His higher Nature consists of the individual atman or purusha or buddhi of beings, jiva-bhuta. Krishna gives a summary of his lower and higher natures. See 7. 4-5 below:

Eightfold divided is My Nature-thus earth, water, fire and air, space, mind (manas), and also the soul (buddhi), and the ego (). (7.4)

This is my lower: but other than this, I have a higher nature; this too you must know. [And this is Nature] developed into life by which this world is kept in being. (7.5) GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 51

Krishna's lower nature is as 'active' as is prakriti in the Sankhya system, but with

regard to his actions to sustain the world in general and with regard to the working out of

the results of the war, in the context of the Bhagavad Gita, He (purusha) is

himself the agent and Lord. Everything in the world of the 'cara-acara' (moving and the

un-moving) is under His control as the controller or agent of the entire cosmos, including

Arjuna and the battle-to-happen and at the end of the yugas. The warriors run towards

their extinction as rivers into the sea and like moths towards fire (11. 28-29).

Arjuna witnesses all the above things in the actual cosmic Vision (11. 32-34). In

addition, Kala too is here, for Krishna says, "Time I Am." Krishna, claims himself to be

Kala (Time) and the one who will swallow up Kala (Yama, god of death) himself in the

end of the yugas (11. 32). And as Kala, of Time and Death, He foretells that, whatever is

Arjuna's will [which amounts to naught], Krishna would cause destruction and death of both armies by swallowing up the whole of the Kshatriya class (as it happened in His

Parasurama-avatar. Krishna's prediction, that He will take the two armies through his many mouths and between his elephant tusk-like teeth to their total extermination, shows that He is certain of His own power and of His determination to destroy them completely.

Two things are brought up again: the multiplicity of the individuals contained in the

'body' of the One Krishna, and the reality of the multiplicity of the whole world as a part of Him. This is definitely the real world of multiplicity (saprapanca) of Vaishnavism, not the phenomenal, unreal (maya world, nishprapanca) of Advaita.

In chapter 11 we see the unequivocal claims of Krishna to be the Absolute higher divinity who is higher than the highest Brahman (11.37), Brammah, the Creator (11. 15), GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 52

82 and Kalan, the destroyer of lives (11. 32). He would destroy the lives of all the warriors

in this battle, whatever Arjuna's decision may be, for it is of no consequence (11. 32); As

Krishna is 'all in all' in all the three worlds, and as He is Time, the time is ripe now for

Krishna to act. The best and the only thing that Arjuna can do would be to agree

intellectually and intuitively to be a 'tool of God' and fight the battle (saranagati

tattvam), for Krishna repeats, the killing is already ordained (11. 33, 34). If he disagrees

with the divine determination; and not take up his sword, he will anyhow be made to do

it, and he would feel frustrated that he is a victim of fate. When the bhakta is united with

the Lord in his actions, the Lord takes the responsibility and final blame for his actions . • ~ Fourth 'Behold' (pasya): Krishna says, "Behold (Pasya) my power as Lord, my

Lordly Yoga" (11. 8, 15-31). As you cannot see Me by your own eye, I will give you the

divine eyes of jnana with which you can behold my Isvara-yoga. Here Krishna is going

to show to Arjuna that He Himself is the Yogesvaran. The whole vision is about Himself,

His power and His glory. His Yoga is what He is and what He does for the maintenance

of order of the universe (3. 22). Gita-yoga is that action is done without concern for the

result; oneself is unattached to prakriti, but attached only and eternally to Krishna and

one gives exclusive and loving devotion to Krishna. Essentially, Gita-yoga is bhakti.

It is worth looking at what psychic movements go on in the beholder of the vision,

Arjuna, whether they are normal, physical, spiritual, mystic or occult. Rohit Mehta

explains in the following passage about the Transfiguration in chapter 11 of the Gita, that

82 This male Brahman is equal to the imperishable highest (neuter) Brahman 8.3, 10.12; Nirvana that is Brahman too subsists in Him (6. 15); He is even higher (11.37), as the base and supporter of Brahman, similar to what we read in SUo 5.1; He is the 'Unknown Other' in Isa Up. 13. He is mighty God, param­ brahma-param= beyond this, beyond Brahman higher, the mighty God (SU. 3. 7). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 53

it is not super-physical power but sensitivity of the heart that is required for the

perception of the intangible.

The perception of the intangible is the way indicated by the mystics of all ages and of all lands. But there is another category of perception, occultism, which does not deal with the intangible but with the invisible; it is the extension of scientific method into realms that are super-physical. Perceptions are of three kinds: they are the Perceived, Unperceivable, and the Unperceived. The first group is recognized by the senses and belongs to the commonsense perception; the second Unperceivable belong to the extra-sensory realms and is recovered by the sciences, physical as well as the super-physical by extension of the consciousness. The Unperceived are those that can be perceived but we do not perceive them due to an insensitivity of the heart, and this is the province of mysticism and it is concerned with the perception of the intangible by deepening of the consciousness. 83

~ Mehta says that the eleventh chapter concerns seeing the invisible, intangible, and quotes Radhakrishnan who says that Arjuna, having understood the mystery of the Seen, now wants to see the embodiment of the Unseen-Divine some call mysticism of devotion.

As mentioned before, Som P. Ranchan too finds the same four units in the cosmic vision of Arjuna as does Arvind Sharma. Ranchan uses psychology, literature and philosophy to go into the problematic of the Gita; he calls the first of the four (pasya) units of this chapter, 'an ensemble', an assembly rather than 'a container', of a million divine forms. He calls Lord Krishna, in Jungian terms, the container of countless archetypes where each archetype is a special type in color, shape and quality displaying the Suns, , healers or destroyers.

In the second unit, Ranchan compares Arjuna's 'terror' in seeing the vision of these archetypes face to face, to facing sure death [death-bed anxiety], and the force is beyond the capacity of ordinary consciousness, which might give way to altered states. Greek

83 Rohit Mehta, Mind to Supermind: A Commentary on the BhagavadGita (Bombay: Manaktala, 1966), 109-10. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 54 mythology has similar stories: Semele losing her life on seeing ; Psyche suffering for years for daring to see her divine lover, Amor in candle-light. In order to see the representations of the archetypes in our ordinary daily life we need superfine consciousness.

Arjuna is thoroughly nervous in the third unit seeing the rise of a thousand suns, and mouths devouring the Kau~ava and the hosts, and Krishna covering all space.

Ranchan explains that instead of 'being turned off', Arjuna is being 'turned on' by the vision so he could demand of Krishna who He was, and receive the answer that He is

Time and now the Kala-agni, the 'fire of doomsday' and is bidden to do his duty of vital , importance. Arjuna is being forced to fight, kill and annihilate witltout any qualms.

The fourth unit is a brief stanza which ends with the request for Krishna becoming his dear kind friend (saumya), which Krishna does, and Arjuna says he has 'returned to his senses and normal state'. Krishna reminds him that He has vouchsafed [formally entrusted] him with a vision that has never been given to any other mortal. 84

So Ranchan sees that the vision has done its job without causing any damage to the psyche of the individual but, on the other hand, transformed the person 'turned on' as we said earlier, to re-enter life with enhanced faith, knowledge and courage to choose to do his duty in the face of his dilemma. Even passively going with the current is a choice.

It should be appreciated that the author, be it Vyasa or Bhadarayana, is a very talented dialogue writer and screenplay director who has orchestrated such a breath- taking acceleration on a large screen, of the magnitude of endless space and endless time, activating the mystical without being injurious to the actor or the spectators. Here you see the songs of the devas, chants of rishis, music of the saints, reverberations of the pranava

84 Ranchan, Revisioning Gita, 41. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 55

OM, the pleadings, ecstatic praises, litanies and supplications of Arjuna. Besides, you see

Krishna playing three parts: Vishnu of thousand arms; Narayana with four; and human

Krishna with only two, thus acting the characters of eternal Creator, Sustainer, and friend.

The cosmic vision is a great comedy with music and drama, and good success at the end of it: reconciliation of God and man in terms of love (bhakti).

In the end, (in 11. 55), atter Arjuna's praise and thanksgiving for the vision (11. 36-

49), Krishna, the Yogesvara, assumes his form of human friend again and teaches the centrality of the Gita-yoga of the individual which is raja-yoga (11. 52-55): In verses 48 and 53, Krishna repeats [for emphasis] that neither the Vedas, nor, sacrifice, alms, rituals,

~ or ascetic practices can one have such a vision but only by My 'grace' (prasanna and My own power (atma-yogat 11. 47). The vision is central to the Gita because it is here that the fundamental motive of the Gila comes into maturity. In the post-Upanishadic age, through this great vision, Vyasa has thus powerfully introduced three things: a personal

God (Krishna), a religion of grace, (bhakti,) and salvation to all (by grace, not works).

Compared to the religions and faiths extant at that time, unlike, Brahmanic ascetic detachment (kaivalya) practices of yogas of various kinds, the bhakti marga is not a world rejecting religion but a warm, world affirming one that teaches closeness to God in the ordinary everyday life and demands of man responsibility for his actions. A person's work reveals his or her thoughts; good works come out of a good heart, and evil works from an evil one. Karma of love towards God (bhakti) alone is the best karma. As this love increases, the love of the world decreases; as love displaces hatred towards other beings, an individual can more easily commit himself completely to God (sarana-gadhi).

All this is derived from Krishna's last words (11. 54-55): "worship Me and none other, GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 56 do non-attached works without desiring fruits, have Me be as your highest goal, [which is intuitive realization of the Self]; cut off attachments to Nature (prakriti, worldliness, materialism), do not hate any being at all; have loyalty, devotion and love, total, exclusive (ananya) and eternal attachment to Krishna so that you can come to Me" - a tall order indeed, but a do-able one with God's grace and power (11. 47). 85 ,86,87

Radhakrishnan's title to this chapter eleven, "Transfiguration," brings to mind, the

Transfiguration of Christ in the gospels. There are many similarities and many more differences between the two. There is the idea of the numinous, mystical, spiritual, super- natural in both; in both there are witnesses to the vision, Sanjaya in the Gita and the three disciples, Peter, James and John in the Bible who, though terrified of the tremendous experience at the beginning, wanted to stay longer because it was fascinating. There is a war in the background of the two Transfigurations, at Kurukshetra and at Calvary; the

85 Krishna's command to worship 'Him alone-and-none-other' (ananya) recalls the first two commandments of Moses: Thou shall not have any other gods, neither shall thou worship them or their idols ... for as I am holy I want you to be holy too (having and ethical practices when you live among nations that do not have them). Looking at the history of Israel, it is these clear mandates demanding strict monotheism, devoid of apostasy and , which have kept the Jewish people as one nation for over 3000 years. Jehovah is a holy god who demands holiness and accountability of the people, especially because they have been given the freedom to choose to obey or not to obey; and accept punishment for violation of the covenant relationship. Our modern justice system too demands of us concurrence with the laws for the good of all the people in that system or else receive penalties for breaking them. It is true that retribution is more severe in more primitive ages and in more primitive societies even today. And yet there is 'grace' attached to law for the penitent and repentant. Just as Krishna says He is the 'Home of the universe (jagan-nivasan)' (11. 28, 25), the God is called the refuge, shelter, fortress and strength. 86 He had provided, through King Solomon etc., 'Cities of Refuge' for people who had committed man­ slaughter, and even the 'horns on the alter' in his temple were places of refuge; he forgave King who had repented of his adultery. He commanded his prophets, Amos, Hosea and Isaiah to preach morality and ethical behavior: honesty in the judicial system, trades, business and social life: not swindling the poor for a pair of sandals nor swallowing up the houses of the widows; not to have hatred, jealousy, , craving or greed. Amos 6. 6: "Let justice flow like a river"; Hosea 6.6: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice".

87 In Christ these would be superseded by love and 'grace' and Paul writes, to Christians to "yield the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, , kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires" (Galatians 5: 22). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 57 mission of the vision was to fight the war, which both warriors, Arjuna and Jesus will win in different ways, one by killing and the other by allowing to be killed. The Cross followed sometime after the Transfiguration. In one, there was utter devastation and loss of an entire civilization, while in the other the birth of a new peaceful way of love, the

Church, although the practitioners of the religion do not often portray it. With the Gita, the Bhakti movement evolved as a new paradigm into a new religious way of life of love and devotion common for all people, male and female of upper and lower castes, although the upper class practitioners have corrupted it by perpetuating the past traditions and laws out of selfishness and greed.

~ After the resurrection of Christ, a new paradigm, a new way of life started in

Palestine, entered the Greco-Roman world and spread. There are other similarities too which cannot be considered in this paper. Because of the similarities, scholars wonder if the Gita has absorbed some of the key principles of Jesus as it has done from Buddhism,

Jainism, Sankhya and Yoga; that even if the Gita did not do so when it was first written by Vyasa, absorption may have happened later in the early Common Era. Now Indian

Christians call Jesus Yogesvaran as he sacrificed his life for others; Purushothaman, the ideal man; Deva-ati-deva (primordial God of gods) etc., and use many words and ideas found in the Gita in their worship of Christ: 'the flame that does not flicker,'88 the sat-- anada (truth, wisdom and bliss), prasada (grace), anugraha (giver), prema (love) etc.

88 Many churches have a 'perpetual' light hanging near the altar with a 'flame without flicker in a windless place' like an integrated bhakta and [God without change] (Gita 6. 19). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 58

There are many differences too between the bhakti of the Gita and the Bible, but we will not go into them in this thesis.89

Credit must be given to Krishna of the Gita for opening the door to God for all races, classes and genders, especially in the face of the Vedas, Upanishads and Advaita. In this there is similarity with Christ who opened the gate widely for the Gentiles and the whole world irrespective of race Qr gender to enter the Kingdom of God as children of God.

However, the doctrines of salvation of the two have many differences although both are religions of 'grace'. In India, the idea of 'grace' illuminated by the Gita for the first time and developed greatly in Vaishnavism and Saivism has so much in common with the teachings of Christ, and yet, much more remains to be practiced Hy the devotees of both religions.

That 'I (God) love you well' (ishto-asi-me) is God's highest and 'the most mysterious doctrine' ofthe Gita, given at the very culmination of the Gita (18.64,65,68, and also 12. 13-20). Friendship and 'grace' in chapter 11 grow into conditional love in

12.13-20, and advances to dear love reciprocating the love of the integrated, totally detached, totally devoted bhakta in chapter 18's carama sloka (last saying), 65 - 66. 90

89The 'Shekinah' VISIOn of Moses on Mount Sinai brings out the common idea of the mysterium tremendum in the vision of God, with many differences. In the Decalogue that Jehovah gave there was no partiality, no vertical hierarchical rigid caste-related inequalities in the name of God and the fear of re­ births. It is the latter that empowers the Caste system It appears that Manu's verse (1. 31) regarding the origin of the four castes is entered without any alteration into the Rig Veda (10.90) word for word, and caste-duties enjoined by the Manu Sastra (6.66;10.97) are quoted verbatim in the Gita (3.35; 18.47). This inhuman Law of Varna is disfiguring the beautiful face of Mother India even today. This problem is discussed more in Section 5, the 'Misuse of the Gita.'

90 Still it is not the unconditional love ofthe gospels: John 3. 16 God so loved the World that he gave his only son that whoever 'believes' in him will not perish but have eternal life", where no 'work' is mandated.

Martin Luther says, righteousness is by "sola scriptura, sola gacia, sola fide, " not works.) (Romans 3: 22). "This is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us first" (1 John 4. 10). Luther would go even another step forward to say that even the faith is given by God: in this, Vaishnavism and Saivism are closer to Luther and Paul than the Gita. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 59

"I love you" is the climax of the Gita or its 'highest mystery', which is the deepest of

the deep wisdom-word of God (,guhyad-guhyatamam-jnanam'), which is revealed to His

loving devotees (bhaktas). "I love you dearly," or literally, 'Loved you are by Me well'

('ishto-asi-me-drdham'); therefore I will tell you the way (yoga) to your salvation, come

to Me without doubting." The Gita had replaced its early teaching of total 'detachment'

found in its first six chapters, by a total attachment from 7.1 until the end of the Gita.

'Detachment' of the world yields to 'attachment' to God, and gradually ascends the steps

of this new teaching of 'raja-yoga,' to have salvation, not by buddhi, but by bhakti alone,

which is an easier wisdom, [sulabbha-jnana] , until its Gita-Rahasya attains its final

climax in its last chapter, in 18. 65-68. Thus 'The Song of the LorCi' closes with the most

reassuring words of Gita-Rahasya, "I love you well." Below, in Conclusion, we will see

what the purport of this chapter (18) is.

THE PURPORT OF CHAPTER ELEVEN OF THE GITA

The eleventh chapter, together with the tenth, gives the essence of the whole of the

BhagavadGita. The manifest splendor of the splendid things (vibhuti) of the immanent

Reality present everywhere in the universe (Nature) is but intangible to the senses

(), as it is only the outer garment and a tiny 'fragment' of the 'whole' majesty of the transcendent God. Its metaphysics is that the immanent, together with the transcendent, constitutes God. Two things are revealed by the Cosmic vision (visva- rupa): Firstly, that Krishna Himself is the Lord of creative power (11.8; 37), eternal, primordial paramount, personal God beyond Brahman (11.37), ever seen and unseen

'Carama sloka' is the 'final important stanza' ofthe Gita: 18.64-65: some would consider that the verses that follow the carama-sloka may be an epilogue or an addendum to the Gita. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 60

(11.3-4), and fearful (11.24); secondly, at the end of the vision, to show His gracious

form (11.51) and reveal (in chapter 12) that bhakti is the devotional loving personal

relationship between Him (God) and human beings (11.53-55), without the necessity for

the Vedas, grim ascetic practice, alms or sacrifice (11.48; 53).

Krishna schemes (uses maya) to worsen Arjuna's dilemma due to the conflict

between Kshatriya-dharma'and family-dharma by giving him a new craving, 91 i.e., to

see His unmanifest Reality; however, by His divine power, through the cosmic Vision,

Krishna converts his craving into an ecstasy and causes a transformation in him to accept

his karmic duty. The Gita presumes that Arjuna has the freedom ,of choice; and he would

~ use it to resolve his conflict by selecting the path of wisdom (jnana- yoga) to do his duty

(karma-yoga) of fighting the war as a true Kshatriya rather than be compelled by nature

later on to do the same. As a grand finale, Krishna gives him a striking new teaching

about bhakti yoga which he may add to his Kshatriya duty and . So what is

the purport of the theme of the story?

The core of the teaching of the Gita is twofold: a metaphysical thesis that affirms the

superiority of the Personal God over the great Brahman, and the practical wisdom about the superiority of bhakti-marga over jnana-karma marga. Then the theory and practice are merged into praxis of the ideal way to God with the rationale that there is no God but

Krishna and no way but bhakti open to every man and every woman of every caste, every race and every inborn-tendency, (every guna, varna and ), thus graciously combining both jnana-marga and karma-marga within bhakti-marga ('jnana-karma-

91 'Craving for more work' being part of rajasa, Kshatriya nature, Krishna utilizes it. But it does not seem to make the slightest difference whether one is fighting in a just or unjust cause; 's cause was unjust in the Mahabharata, but it is Arjuna, who goes to hell (2. 31-33 n Zaehner) because craving is an activity that leads to rebirth. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 61 anugrahith'), the 'tri-margas'. Thus chapter 11 of the Gita is extremely ingenious in establishing bhakti as the new ideal way to God, without discarding either jnana or karma marga already in vogue at that time, but allowing them both to be embraced, by adding them as inferior alternatives to bhakti. So far so good.

However, there is a glaring contradiction here that runs against the grain of bhakti; it is the enforcement of varna'-dharma on Arjuna by Krishna by His sheer power as Isvara

(4. 13),92 which, I think, is a contradiction that violates the of love, grace and equality of bhakti. Yet, there are defenders of this contradiction, such as Heinrich

Zimmer, who would emphasize the value of such a contradiction ,and call it only apparent

~ or irrelevant, and Max Weber who sees the Gita's approach to caste dharma as its originality and considers the relationship between the opposites such as racial purity- impurity or superior-inferior as illusory.93 But these modem western do not understand the gravity of injustice and sufferings that the caste system has caused to the low caste people in the last two thousand years or more.

92 Gita: 4. 13: "The four-caste system did I generate with categories of constituents and works; of this I am the doer; the changeless one does not do." Zaehner's notes on p.187explain, how from the empirical point of view the law of karma binds God, the only true agent, to what he does: this is maya, which is contradicted by the absolute point of view, where the Absolute does not act. But for the Gita it is a combination of both dynamism and rest. Whatever may be the philosophical argument for castes, a man of another race and his posterity being forced to carry a basket of human-soil on the head in the name of God without desire for fruits can never be an illusion but only an inhumane reality.

93 "Roland Kapferer, Contradiction and Logic of Conversion in the Bhagavad-Gita, in "New Essays in the BhagavadGita" Compiled by Arvind Sharma, (New Delhi: Books & Books, 1987), 127-137. Kapferer refers to Max Weber, The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism, (New York: The Free Press, 1058), p. 39-44; 184; and Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973),35: as a reference to a controversy between 'structuralistic' and 'Relationalistic' theories: High and low castes are not theoretical, symbolical, speculative paradoxes or illusions but real blatant contradictions allowing learning, leisure and loftiness to stand side by side with real human suffering, indignity and deprivation. How does the author of the Gita contradict himself so easily? Such contradiction should not be maintained by allegorizing, spiritualizing, rationalizing, or reconciling but be viewed as illogical extraneous materials introduced by racist interpolators. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 62

This contradiction runs palpably against the current of love and grace of the Gita's surge, bhakti. Hence, one could postulate that the discordant teaching of color is possibly a deliberate and opportunistic insertion of a social law into the 'best-seller' of the day; that it is possibly an interpolation into a piece of religious literature (smriti) widely read and loved by the masses; that it is probably done by an interested, beneficiary party. This should be seen as an abuse ,of the Gita to the advantage of the Aryan classes, especially the Brahmin, and a manipulation of the so-called lower classes and castes to consent to cheap or unpaid labor and disrespect, for fear of punishment of God.

This view is plausible because, even today, the same upper castes quote the Gita's lofty principles, especially of doing one's own work ordained by ri'ature, working without expecting the fruits of one's labor, and accepting these atrocities by self-surrender. The beneficiaries demanded continued subordination of the lower castes in the name of God and fear of rebirths, without trying to reduce or stop the shame and suffering attached to those menial duties which are handed down to their progeny endlessly.

Here rebirth or re-incarnation is not recollection of past deeds, which may be resolved, but judgment for deeds in a previous life (karma) which cannot be reconciled.

The Gita's theory of karma does not promote justice: You sorrow for men who do not need your sorrow, for your actions to lessen suffering interfere with cosmic justice (2.11,

22);94 it also bestows an attitude of superiority to the upper caste that it is by their past good karma they now deserve their high birth-rank and benefits. On the victims' side, it

94 Vishal Mangalwadi, When the New Age Gets Old: Looking for greater (Downesgrove, Illinois: IVP, 1992), 194 - 96. Vishal quotes Romila Thaper, A History of India, (Harmond'sworth, Penguin Books, 1975), 46: "The doctrine of karma also provided a philosophical justification for caste." Even Mahatma Gandhi concluded that is a burden too great to bear. Compare this with Jesus' answer regarding the man born blind, whom he healed: He is not blind because of his own sin or of his parents' (John 9.2) .. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 63 undermines their individual significance that even those with education, affluence and superior moral character accept violation of morality and social discrimination as dharma, justice. When religion is blended with tradition, unthinking people do not know how to evaluate the two separately. They accept abuse as remedy for sufferings of karma that they may be born in a higher caste in their next birth, and thereby perpetuate the cruel hierarchy of caste generation after generation. Even the Sudra castes enjoy some pride and satisfaction that they are better than many sub-castes that are even lower.

Generally, they willingly accept man-made svadharma and svakarma laws of manava- dharma of Manu as if they were of divine institution.

2.3 THE IDEA OF BHAKTI

As we have seen earlier, the idea of love in a religious sense or even words akin to love, such as, grace (anugraha) or compassion (karuna) are not found in any Upanishad except the late Upanishad, Svetasvatara. 95 This makes one wonder about the nature of the Upanishadic theism, the relation of man and Brahman or man and God in these times, and the reason for this absence. One does not see the thought of grace or love in either the early Upanishads written from 500 BCE, or in the later Upanishads written up to100

BCE, 96 although the Buddha was living and teaching in the 400s, and Buddhism was

95 The late Upanishads, the Katha , Kaushitaki, Svetasvatara and Mandukya Upanishads, are dated as late as c. 400-120 BCE 'i.e., after the death of the Buddha and the Vardhamana Jaina, and the Bhagavad-Gita.

96 Wendy Doniger, Chronology of events, 600 BCE to 232 CE, (p. 93) could be seen on p. xiv of this paper. She gives the Mahabharata Epic with the Gita in it between 300 BCE and 300 CE. D. D. Kosambi, "Historical Development of the Bhagavad Gita," in Studies in the History of Indian Philosophy, ed. Debiprasad Chattopadyaya Vol. 1. (Calcutta: Bagchi & Company, 1978),248: Kosambi would put the Gita between 150 CE and 300 CE because of the high Sanskrit in which it is written GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 64

using these terms in its writings.97 From 300 BCE to 300 CE, when the Mahabharata

Epic was being written, there was a great dearth of grace. It appears that the author of the

Gita found this to be the right time to introduce his gospel of love in India, and made the

Gila abundant in love and grace. We will explore Grace in the Gita later on. It appears that the Aryans absorbed ahimsa from the Buddhists, which is one of the four great brahma-viharas (perfect virtues) and stopped blood-sacrifice, but did not absorb metta

(amity, compassion, friendliness). Metta of Buddhism is not the same as Christian love or agape. It is used 33 times in the Old Testament, 70 times in a single Pali Buddhist

Scripture, but only once in the Upanishads as 'god Mitra, (the double, of Varona) was a

~ friendly god.' Friendship may be old in India, but absence of amity in a text is significant.

In Buddhism, compassion or friendliness is not taught as an essential way of 'becoming

More in the wayfaring toward the Most,' for liberation, but as a natural occurrence in the person. 98

As the commentaries of national leaders such as Tilak express, Hinduism is not world and life negating religion; according to Radhakrishnan the Gita is an ethical treatise, a yoga-sastra.99 The view that Hinduism is so obsessed by its quest for

'liberation' that it has very little to say in the matter of day-to-day morality and of

97 The four 'Brahma-Vihara' or the four perfect virtues are: limitless kindness towards all beings, limitless compassion towards those who are suffering, limitless sympathetic joy over the salvation of others from suffering, and limitless toward friend and foe. Practicing these will bring about rebirth in the heaven of Brahma - hence the name, Brahma-Vihara. The Sanskrit equivalents are maitri, karuna, muditta and . Buddhism has no God and therefore no bhakti to God. The Upanishads are in a period of transition from reaching by intuition the nameless-formless-timeless Absolute Brahman-Atman-Self by the 'transcendent self' to intuitive realization of God who transcends Brahman in the later Upanishads, Katha and Svetasvatara, which are the stepping-stones to theism and bhakti. The Isa Upanishad of 18 verses bears the name of God as Isa (Lord) which stands for Isvara. 98 Rhys , What Buddhism Did: Is Buddhism an expansion of Hinduism? in Outlines of Buddhism (London: Methuen & Co, 1934),26-38. Wayfaring is a Buddhist concept: Buddhists are wayfarers towards the fourth stage, Nirvana, which the monks alone reach; the lay make it only the third stage - non-return.

th 99 P. M. Thomas, 20 Century Indian Interpretation of BhagavadGita, (Delhi: ISPCK, 1987), 188. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 65 people's relation to their fellow due to the lack of ethical emphasis among some modern

Hindu apologists and an over-emphasis on the philosophical side which is irrelevant to the average Hindu. This view also stresses the importance of Upanishadic Hinduism at the expense of the mundane world as we see in the epics. The Mahabharata, India's gigantic epic, brings in a myriad of aspects of life in small scale, and the Ramayana focuses on the perfect life lived by Rama, the incarnate Vishnu. The dilemma of

Yudhishthira is the tension between sanatana dharma of God, which is hard to know, and manu-dharma of man, which is inscribed in stone. The first is written in the social and second in social cruelty. There is a tension between, right dharma, and right karma. Arjuna's tension in the Gita is between his social-dharma to his kith and kin and his caste-karma to kill the same in the battlefield. The tension between dharma and moksha is another tension to resolve as the two sides of the same coin for 'Right action' is the requirement for participation in the infinite, bhakti. Modern Indian thinkers have tried to re-interpret the Gita' s ethics of for a new code of conduct for the nation. 100

In the Gita, there is a shift from the participation in the Vedic sacrificial ritual and the ideal of holy indifference typical of the Upanishads to an intimate warmer relationship between God and human beings. The Gita, India's gospel of love, does not use bhaj to mean love in the hedonistic, secular, sexual or asexual manner. The Gita does not make use of sensuous sex symbols at all, which is common place in the Mahabharata,

Ramayana and Bhagavata-Purana that employ sexual relationship to depict the love between God and the soul. lOl

th 100 P. M. Thomas, 20 Century Indian Philosophy, p. 193. 101 Dhavamony, Love of God, 44. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 66

In the Gita, bhakti is proposed both as a means of release as well as the goal of

liberation itself. As the means, bhakti denotes the love of God shown by the devotee with

the view to attaining final liberation; and as the liberated state, bhakti signifies union with

and surrender to God, which is the felt participation of the soul in the total being of God.

In Saivism, God and the human self are distinct from each other even in the state of

liberation and final mukti, 'as in Christianity. See below for the analysis of love as

bhakti. 102

2.3 The analytic of bhakti in the Gita:

A. The Nature of Bhakti: a ) bhakti and karma b) bhakti and jnana: bhakti prioritized over jnana and karma c ) bhakti and self-surrender d) Supreme bhakti e) God's love for and surrender to His bhakta

B a) Liberation b) Salvation

2. 3. A. THE NATURE OF BHAKTI

Bhakti in the Gita is the means towards liberation and its completion as we have

noted earlier. As common to all bhakti texts, bhakti is basically divided into inferior and

higher, imperfect and perfect, named variously as apara and para, gauni and suddha, or

and . In the Gita bhakti is fourfold (7.16): the bhakti of the afflicted one;

the inquiring one; the one desirous of wealth; and finally, the possessor of knowledge. In

102 See Christian love (Agape) in Chapter 1 of this paper. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 67

other words, they are the penitent, the one who seeks wisdom, the one who strives for

gain and finally the perfect bhakta who already possess knowledge. These four seem to

resemble the Saiva Siddhanta's four types of bhakti: Carya, Kiriya, yoga andjnana, the

fourth alone being the perfect bhakti, where the final goal is the Lord 103

2.3. A. a

a. BHAKTI AND KARMA

Karma or activity is the law of nature and a law of God. Liberation is to be sought

not by renouncing activity but renouncing all self-interest in the accomplishment, of doing

one's God-appointed duty, especially those obligations in accordance with one's station

in life (svadharma Chapter 3; karma-yogaI8.4lff). True sannyasa is not inactivity

(naishkarmya 3. 4), but disinterested activity (nish-kama-karma) abandoning all fruit of

action (karma-phala-tyaga (6. 1; 18. 2, 5-6). It is self-interested desire (kama), not

activity itself (karma) that binds one to work.

In bhakti, in the Gita, disinterested activity (detachment) finds the real meaning and purpose in single-minded attachment to Krishna: a complete God-centeredness casting all work on Him (3. 30), but doing it as an offering to Him (9. 27), in being only an instrument (11. 33). That devotee whose work is thus to Him, whose goal is God, who is void of enmity and free from attachment, comes to Me (11.55). Bhakti destroys sin and the potencies of sin in the self. The Gita says that even if the individual's conduct is most evil, if he devotes to God and none other, that individual should be considered good, for his intention is right. Very soon that person will become righteous in soul and gain

103 Dhavamony, Love of God, 78. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 68

thereby eternal peace (9. 30-1). Krishna says to Arjuna, in the last chapter, to come to

Him alone for refuge and release from all evil' (18.66).104

However, Dhavamony believes that the Gita' s idea of evil remains hazy and

unsatisfactory. Sin is generally an innate, egoistic 'desire' (3. 37): theoretical rather than

actual, and can be removed by bhakti. The Gita does not know the deep of the repentant sinner and the important role of the deep feelings of shame and regret over doing something wrong. In one's love for God, this kind of repentant love emerges later in Hinduism, especially with the advent of the Tamil Saivite mystics of the seventh to fourteenth centuries. 105

2.3. A b b. BHAKTI AND JNANA True bhakti is saturated withjnana.

To them ever integrated and commune with Me in love I give that integration of the soul by which they may draw nigh to Me ... I dispel their ignorance with wisdom's shining lamp ... (10. 10 -11).

The goal of the athlete, now, is God; so he must move outward to draw nigh unto

God who gives integration of the soul by which the bhakta can have communion with

God in love: the combination of integration and love can be seen here. The Gita also reveals the wisdom that God dwells in the self (andhar-atma): in other words, to know that God is in you, the lamp that enlightens the total personality is itself the self: is the

'highest wisdom.' Ramanuja rightly says jnana here means knowledge of God. The lamp that stands unflickering in a windless place is the athlete who controls his thought, and practices integration of the self.

104 Dhavamony, Love of God, 78-79. 105 Dhavamony, Love of God, 79. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 69

There is a difference between the integration of the self in chapter two and in chapter ten. In the former, the integration results in the 'fixed still state of Brahman,' but in the latter, love must be integrated into the self too, for the goal is now God: once he comes to

'know' God, he 'becomes Brahman' by the integration that God gives, and communes with God by drawing nigh to God with loving devotion. By a two-way process, God helps the one who desires to go nigh to God. This is further confirmed with splendid clarity in the last Chapter (18.49-56).106 The perfect yogin transcends work (naish-kannya- ) and achieves the 'still state' of Brahman, which is wisdom's highest goal, and Nirvana107 too (18. 49-53); having become Brahman by love-and-1oyalty he comes to 'know' God as He

I really is and possesses Him in His fullness, forthwith, by His grace (18. ~54-56). Thus the perfect yogin transcends wisdom's highest goal by bhakti.

It must be emphasized that Krishna prioritizes bhakti over jnana and karma in these five passages (6. 8, 10, 14-15, 18-23, 27-32), which show the progressive stages of full liberation. In sum, the athlete of the spirit is the bhakta, who has integrated his self with

Brahman first and then communes in love with God as abiding in all things, and abiding in God; he is the highest athlete of the spirit, for he is higher than the mere ascetic, the man of wisdom, and the man of works. But the most fully integrated is the man of faith who loves-and-honors Me, and is absorbed in Me (bhakti).

2.3. A. c c. BHAKTI AND SELF-SURRENDER

\06 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 294, n for 10.10-11; and also see the exhaustive notes on 9.34 (pp. 286-90) for the combination of jnana and bhakti. In the eyes of the author of the Gita, the old, largely Buddhistic idea of 'liberation' - the transcendence of the phenomenal - is not the goal of the mystical life, but only the end of what is called in the West the 'via purgativa,' (a place of preparation for heaven). However, Zaehner emphasizes that the transcendental that is won does not disappear. The religion of bhakti supersedes Sankhya, Brahmanism and Buddhism and establishes Theism.

107 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 18.49, n: "naish-kamya-siddhim" is the Buddhist nekkhamma, 'passionlessness.' This Buddhist 'perfection' is not yet even to 'become Brahman', let alone to enter God." GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 70

In the Gita, the sole object of bhakti is God, and a whole-hearted self-surrender to

God is an essential element of bhakti. Non-attachment to things of the world (nish-kama-

karma) finds its true meaning in the whole-hearted attachment and surrender to God.

Krishna teaches that bhakti must be undivided (ananya) and unwavering (avyabhicarin);

as He is the goal, the bhakta must offer his mind, love, service and sacrifice to Him,

abandoning the fruit of every duty, and corne to Him alone for refuge: (9. 34; 18. 66). J08

2.3. A. d d. SUPREME BHAKT: (parama-bhakti)

In the Gita, bhakti reaches its full significance only after "liberation," i.e., integration ~ of oneself with Brahman when the bhakta can advance towards God (9. 34). Supreme

bhakti is the supreme goal of the integrated person beyond the realization of his

transcendent self as Brahman: this state is unconditioned by space, time, matter, change

or anything at all in the phenomenal world.

2.3. A. e

e. LOVE BETWEEN ISVARA AND THE HUMAN BEING

This includes God's love for the bhakta and His surrender to His bhakta. This aspect

of bhakti is from God's side. God intervenes personally and saves the self (soul) in

bondage. God attracts and instructs the individual and is active in his soul (Self within the

self) by His immanent presence in his soul, and by means of His avatara by His direct

presence among the contingent beings. In the Gita, Krishna is good, gracious and

merciful to all who turn to Him for refuge. He is the father of the world (11. 43), and

friend of every being as he is to Arjuna at the visvarupa in Chapter 11. He is good to all

108 M. Dhavamony, Love of God, 80. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 71

with goodwill and dear beyond measure to His devotees who are dear to him. He is

patient and forbearing to his bhaktas as He is to Arjuna. He adjusts Himself to the

individual temperaments in the same way as they approach to him, showing His love (4.

11), as a father to his son, a friend to his friend and a lover to his beloved (11. 43).109

In particular, God saves his bhaktas: no devotee of His is ever lost (9.31); He reveals

Himself to his devotees by His grace (prasada) (11. 47, 18. 56, 73), makes them overcome doubts and obstacles (18. 58, 73), gives them supreme peace in salvation (18.

56, 62), refuge, deliverance from all evils (18. 66).1l0 Bhakti is easier than revering the unmanifest indeterminate Brahman.

2.3. B

LIBERATION

Moksha is viewed negatively in the Gita; it is "liberation" from evil and sin, from action and bond of action, and from death and rebirth. On the positive side, moksha is supreme perfection, the highest goal, the supreme abode, supreme happiness, peace, immortality. It is the 'abode of Brahman' (5. 19-20), 'the Nirvana of Brahman' (5. 14ff); it is going to Brahman, attaining Brahman (4. 24; 8. 24; 18. 50) and even becoming

Brahman (5. 24; 6. 27; 14.26; 18. 53-4).1l1

The relation of the liberated soul to God, however, is by bhakti. The aspects of

'Going to God,' 'dwelling in God,' and 'penetration into the substance of God' are best realized in the supreme bhakti. Zaehner explains this state of supreme bhakti as the felt

109 Dhavamony, Love of God, 82 110 Dhavamony, Love of God, 83. III M. Dhavamony, Love of God, 79. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 72 participation of the soul in the total being of God rather than the achievement of an individual Nirvana.' 112

The yogin who participates (mam bhajaty) in me, who am present in all contingent beings, who, grounded in unity, is yet engaged in all manner of occupations, abides in me. (6.31). But of all the athletes of the spirit the man of faith who loves and honors Me, His inmost self absorbed in Me, - he is the most fully integrated: this do I believe (6. 47).

These two verses (6. ~1, 47) depict the best athlete of the spirit (bhakta) as the climax of the whole of the first section of the Gita (Chapters 1-6): there is no one more excellent than the bhakta with faith, love and honor for God in the inmost-self, he is absorbed-in-Him; he is the most fully integrated, purified and liberated individual-self

(jiva); he is already in Nirvana that is Brahman toO.1I3

2.3. C

SALVATION

Explicating the verse, 6.47, Ramanuja says that the most integrated yogi's innermost- self is absorbed-in-Him (antaratmana mam bhajate); or is lost-in-Him. The inmost-soul is the mind which is the receptacle of all external and internal impressions. Such a yogin's mind, then, is lost in Him from the excess of love that he bears for Him, as He is different in essence from all else: therefore he cannot continue to exist without Him. 114

Swami Abhisiktananda says, similarly, that "guhya" means a 'cave,' antaratma, a secret place of the heart, the interiority of the mystics, the deepest innermost abyss of their own heart; and we cannot enter the heart of God except by 'losing' ourselves in our

112 M. Dhavamony, Love a/God, 81 uses this quote from R. C. Zaehner, "The Catholic Church and World Religions," (London: 1964),37. 113 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 172.

114 Gita 6.47 is reminiscent of Augustine's prayer, "Our hearts are restless, 0 Lord, until they have found their rest in Thee." St. Paul says, "Do you not know that you yourselves are the temple of God and God's Holy Spirit lives in you? Therefore honor God with your body" (1 Cor. 3: 16). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 73 own depths first, and then by the inter-penetration of the hearts of man and GOd. 115

Zaehner too compares this participation and interpenetration (3. 30, n) to God's love,

Agape. God abides in the hearts of his lovers. It is no longer the isolation (kaivalya) of the eternal element of the Sankhya system, not even the fixed still state attained by becoming Brahman, but it is the highest level of bhakti, in which there is communication with God: a complete, pers~ indwelling of God experienced only by the person who has already achieved perfect liberation. 116 This is what makes the Gita's bhakti unique.

In the Gita, 'participation' is to be understood as being made fit for deification (mad- bhavayo13. 18); so the individual in this state simply goes to God, for He is the 'Way' (9. , 18), or with this God-given wisdom comes to the liberated state. In other words, the individual reaches the first step which is the knowledge of self as Brahman (14. 2). As

Ramanuja says, he then knows God as He is Himself ('ab intra'). God-realizing bhakti leads him to total possession of God's love and His being in His fullness, forthwith

(18.55). This is disclosed in Gita 18. 64-66 as the great Gita-Rahasya or the most secret message of God's own love for the bhakta, the great secret of Salvation, Brahma-

Rahasya, and the truth of the truth (satyasya-satyam) of Chandogya Upanishad (6. 29).

In sum, Krishna promises to love him beyond measure who loves Him beyond measure.

Unable to bear the separation from him, He will cause him to come to Him and possess

Him, and will deliver him from all evils. This is Krishna's true promise: you will come to me, your final goal, your moksha.

115 Swami Abhisiktananda, Hindu-Christian Meeting Point, (Delhi: ISPCK, 1976), 119. He was a Benedictine monk and his real name was Dom Henri Le Saux: "None can enter the abyss of the heart of Christ save by undergoing death - for that heart was itself 'opened' by the thrust of the soldier's lance: it is by 'interpenetration' of the hearts. If the Christians have first lost themselves in their own depths, in this essential interiority, they can communicate this message to others from heart to heart." 116 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, notes on 13.29; 18.54. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 74

LIBERATION AND SALV ATION COMPARED

The Gita's highest goal, parama-gatim or final liberation, seems to be a mixture of the theories that existed in its time. Its metaphysics is, however, different from that of the

Mahabharata and the early Upanishads. Bhakti has no place in the Brahmanic idea of liberation. II7 The Gita holds on to its own two key teachings that bhakti is the direct means to the goal, moksh{l; and that the distinction between God and the human continues in life and also after death. 118

To achieve liberation or moksha which is the goal of the three aims of human life, 119 one is to be disentangled from karma and cross the ocean of samsara. Though some think that being eschatological, achievement of moksha rests only on speculation; and that it being only the goal of faith, it may hardly be considered philosophy. Most schools conceived that the moksha ideal is realizable in this life. Now we will see a few views about moksha. I20 The Absolutist Vedantin view decides in favor of jivan-mukti or complete oneness with the Absolute, which is released even before death by means of jnana that removes ignorance so that the oneness continues even after the death of the body: the body, which is a mere illusionary appearance. The purely theistic view of liberation is in favor of continual progress towards mukti within the limits of the present life; however, with a persistent distinction between the person and God. Nyaya-

Vaiseshika and Visishtadvaita do not formally accept the jivan-mukti ideal, but they

117 Jan Gonda, Notes on Brahman (Utrecht: J.L.Bayers, 1950), 11-16: The Gita has non-theistic sources such as the Upanishads and theistic sources, e.g., (7.19; 11.50), Sankhya and Bhagavata creed which have been adjusted to the needs of the Gita: Hiriyanna, Outlines, 131-33. Hiriyanna, Outlines, 86-88 M. Dhavamony, Love a/God, 76; Hiriyanna, Outlines, 86-88.

118 Hiriyanna, Outlines, 126. Hiriyanna discusses moksha in Hinduism's different belief systems, (81-3). 119 The three aims (tri-) are artha, kama, dharma or acquisition of desired and desirable wealth, hedonistic and psychological pleasures of value, and ethical values which lead to the fourth aim, moksha. 120 Hiriyanna, Outlines, 19. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 75 accept a clearly recognized possibility of a man reaching a state of enlightenment by means of bhakti which transforms his outlook upon the world and fills it with a new significance. The concept of mukti is very old. In fact, the Katha Upanishad (ll.iii.14) speaks about videhamukti in which the consequences of the good and bad life led here have to be reaped elsewhere. Since the heterodox religions did not look forward to a future life and considered lrfoksha negatively as an escape from the meshes of samsara here and now, the concept of moksha attained after life was irrelevant to them. Although the dogma of moksha points beyond intellectual satisfaction, it is still within the bounds of experience. 121

\ The Gita has verses that say that Krishna may be reached by praying to Him even at the of death (8.5), but it abounds with the thought that He is realizable within the limits of this life (5. 19, 26). A superb example of this realization (2.55-58; 14.22-25) is the direct vision of God that Arjuna had with his god-given eyes (grace) while he is still alive (11.8). It is an important Christian teaching too that it is possible to live in God, while still living in. the world: to be in the world, yet not of the world, but in God. 122

121 Hiriyanna, Outlines, 19. 122 The teaching of the Bible, that new spiritual life can start while yet alive and continue into the life after death, is close to that of the non-Advaitin view of the Gita that life with the fullness of God can be experienced in this life. At the grave of Lazarus Jesus tells Martha, "I am resurrection and life; He who believes in me lives even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die; do you believe this? (John 11. 25): there must be physical death but if a person has life in God on earth, he has no death. In Christianity as in Vaishnavism, there is distinction between God and man now and after death. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 76

CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER TWO ON BHAKTI

The bhakti religion played the most dynamic game-change ever in India by superseding Vedism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and took the epoch-making first giant-step that opened the path to God for all levels of people alike.

As Zimmer says, that in the period of the Upanishads, before the ascendancy of bhakti, Brahmanical thinking founded on the realization of an all-unifying transcendent principle was well fitted to absorb not only the divine personalities of the earlier Vedic theism but also the much more sophisticated philosophic and devotional formulae of the non-Aryan Dravidian original traditions mentioned earlier. As for the Gita, it is the first classic Sanskrit sacred document that speaks of the first stage&. of this religious and philosophic adjustment in the light of the arrival of the younger theistic religion, bhakti, as a reciprocal loving relationship between a personal God and human beings. 123

The Gita points to the bhakti religion as a pathway (marga) to the Supreme with precedence over the religion of the Vedic sacrifices and of the Upanishadic liberation from human and material conditions. Bhakti ascends over jnana and yoga pathways both in value and esteem, by becoming jnana and yoga too. Krishna takes the seat of the

Sankhyan purusha, and becomes the ground of the Absolute Brahman who is Nirvana too. Accordingly, bhakti absorbs jnana, yoga, Sankhya, Vedanta and Buddhism and ascends higher than anyone of them individually, and all of them together. Bhakti is not a symbiotic living side-by-side with these schools and adapting itself to their means and goals, but is a unique entity selective in its absorption, assimilation and integration within itself, and rejection of what it cannot agree with.

123 Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 380. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 77

Furthermore, it is important to understand a vital distinction between Brahmanism's absorption and the bhakti religions' participation (or association) in the concept of moksha. In absorption, the soul becomes one with Brahman by its svarupa from within; but, on the contrary, in bhakti, when the soul participates, it reaches the presence of God from the outside and realizes God as distinct from itself: it does not fuse with God. The more the soul becomes one with God, the more it asserts its distinction. There is an explicit difference between the Upanishadic "whoever really knows Brahman becomes

Brahman" "Brahma Veda Brahmaiva Bhavati" (Mu.D.3.2.9), and the Gita's "my devotee-after being integrated comes to me" ("mad-bhakta yanti mam api" 7.23). This , distinction, which is only implicit in the Gita, becomes expli~it in the later bhakti religions, Saivism and Vaishnavism of South India, as we have seen earlier. 124 As the

Tamil saying goes, "However high the little sparrow flies, it can never become an eagle," and as Martin Luther says, "God is God and man is man;" man can never become God, but can have the likeness of God. The relationship between the two is grace on God's side and faith on the human side. 125

124 M. Dhavamony, Love o/God, 83 125 Bernard Lohse, Martin Luther, (Fortress Press: Philadelphia, 1986), 174.

GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 78

CHAPTER 3

3. 1 TWO ANCIENT INTERPRETERS OF THE GITA 3.2 TWO MODERN INTERPRETERS OF THE GITA

Commentaries indicate to us what the Gita meant to its commentators and to their contemporaries. And yet, all scriptures have two sides: a) the eternal, imperishable and visions applicable to all ages and b) the temporary and perishable ideas, intellectual expressions, psychological idioms belonging to the contemporary time. Commentators take the ancient wisdom of the scriptures and express them in a new form relevant to the age and responsive to its needs: dealing with orthodoxy and dynamic new thinking in a changing and expanding world with explosive freedom.

The two most important ancient traditional commentators of the Gita are Srimad

Sankaracharya, who fashioned his commentary to face up to the religious and philosophical challenges of his time, and Srimad Ramanujacarya, who challenged the

Advaita doctrine of Sankara and re-interpreted concepts such as jnana, karma and dharma, and the metaphysical Reality implied by them from the view-point of bhakti. We will next review the two most important modern commentators of the Gita, Bal

Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi, who purport to forge a dynamic national ideology that faces up to the challenges of their day in their different ways.

We will start with Srimad Sankaracharya in the following section. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 79

3. 1 TWO ANCIENT INTERPRETERS OF THE GITA

3.1. A. SRIMAD SANKARACARYA (C.788-820 CE)

The most outstanding philosopher, Sankaracharya, lived almost a millennium after the era of the Gila. He is a Saivite Brahmin from Kaladi, Kerala in South India, to whom we owe the best known philosophy of India, viz., - in the form in which it has stood for twelve hundfed years. Sankara is considered a genius: a great intellectual, logical thinker, astute dialectician and a remarkable religious poet who wrote extensive commentaries on the prastana-trayi, (the Brahma-, the Upanishads, and the Gila).

Within such a very short life-time (32 years), he traveled all ov;er India and established his doctrines and founded an order of Hindu monks. Many would rightly compare him to

St. Thomas Aquinas. It will be remembered that Sankara uses the Gita to support his own doctrine of Advaila Vedanta or Absolute Monism.

Even B. G. Tilak, who rejects Sankara's interpretation of the Gita as Vedantic- sectarian, nevertheless, acknowledges him as an extraordinary scholar and sage who established the system of the classical Advaita Vedanta thought on the firm foundation of the Religion of the Vedas. 126 Like Tilak, W. P. D. Hill too asserts that Sankara could not conceal the fact that the Advaita and the Gita systems are not at one. 127 Sankara decided to be sectarian because when he took up the explication of the Gita, Hinduism was confronted by other powerful philosophies extant then as Hinduism is in our time. His activity resulted in the closure of many Buddhist .

126 , Srimad BhagavadGita-Rahasya (Poona: Tilak Brothers Publications, 1917, 13. Tilak interprets the Gila from a social activist point of view. 127 W. P. D. Hill, BhagavadGila (London: 1928),273. Hill is a much admired translator of the Gila. Hill says that Sankara places undue emphasis on the power of knowledge ... while Ramanuja errs perhaps in excessive emphasis on bhakli, 274. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 80

A critical assessment of Sankara's views on the Gita should begin with Sankara's reference to the doctrine that the Gita sets forth the quintessence of the Upanishads, and that its main conclusions harmonize with the teachings of the Brahmasutra. At the same time, Sankara is aware that the emphasis of the Gita is not always identical with the

Upanishads and the Brahmasutra texts. Sankara, on a universal reading, sees the

Absolute Brahman as supre,me, whereas the Gita, on a considered and unbiased reading, uplifts God above Brahman. We can see this tension by letting Sankara's BhagavadGita-

Bhashya (commentary) speak for his ideas. The tension is more vivid when Sankara's

Gita- is countered by the Gita-Bhashya of Ramanuja, the founder of the

Qualified Advaita-Vedanta. Let's see some of the concepts of lthe Gita that Sankara attacks. 128

First of all, in his famous Bhashya, Sankara firmly deduces that the Gita is only a smriti, not a sruti, and it does not deserve the status of a sruti because it does not contain inerrant truth as the Vedas and the Upanishads do. Supporting this argument, in his explication of Gita 13.1-4, Sankara defines the truth of field as only what had been sung by seers such as Vasishta in various hymns, and what is reasoned in the aphorisms such as the Brahmasutra, are steps to know and attain Brahman, the knower-of-the-field:

Brahman utterances are veridical, conclusive and free from doubt. 129

Besides, in his famous Gita Bhashya, Sankaracharya does not give the full status of

God to the avatar. 130 Following their founder, the Advaitin commentators of Sankara

128 M. Narasimhachari, The Visishtadvaita Philosophy in The Perspectives of Theism and Absolutism in Indian Philosophy (Madras: Mission, Vivekananda College, 1978), 2: Ramanuja refutes the mayavada concept and the seven-fold inconsistencies found in the Advaita concept of avidya. 129 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 336-44: explores this passage (13. 4-25) regarding the hierarchy of Purusha, Brahman and the Personal God, who is ; A. G. Krishna Warrier, Bhagavad Gita Bhashya, 422. 130 Sruti is revealed Scripture; sastra or smriti is human science. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 81 also interpreted the Gita, not as scripture, but as the 'science' of salvation (moksha-

'sastra') which was realization of the self, and emphasized knowledge (jnana) as the path for moksha of the individual, but neglected the individual's social duty (dharma). In the hands of the acariyas and religious leaders, therefore, the Gita became a weapon of dialectical warfare.

Is Krishna an Avatara Qncarnation) or a 'nara' (man)?

Sankara does not give full status of God to Krishna, the avatara because Krishna is the son of human parents, and Vasudeva. Sankara cannot accept Krishna as revelation of the full divinity of God because he interprets avatara as only a partial

(amsena) descent (coming down) of Vishnu. Hence, Krishna is not greater than the

Absolute ineffable transcendent Brahman, the "One-without-a-second." 131

Further, Sankara does not acknowledge the Gita as scripture (sruti) because, according to orthodox Hindu tradition, only the Vedas and the Upanishads are revealed scriptures (sruti). Hence, Sankara does not grant independent status of a s'ruti either to the

Gita or to the Brahma-Sutra: the Gita is not an original , but dependent on the Upanishads; and the Brahma-Sutra, is only a summary of the Upanishads. As such, both are only derivatives of the Upanishads. Thus, neither the Gita nor the Brahma-Sutra has the status of a sruti and therefore, the status to be a part of the prastahana-trayi.

Finally, arguing that since the Gita is not a sruti, Sankara infers, it should be reduced to the level of a sastra (or a smriti), and denied it the authority of a Scripture.

131 R. C. Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 8. To Sankara, Reality, Brahman is unfractionably one, all diversity and multiplicity is ultimately illusory appearance. This world is an illusory appearance (maya or prakriti), conditioned by space, time, causation and action (change, karma). But, God, as an agent, involved in the affairs of the world is not fully real. This is not just a metaphysical statement but a fact of mystical experience. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 82

In the introduction to his Gitabhashya, Sankara puts the relevance of the Gita, in a nut-shell, by addressing it as 'Gita-Sastra,' the essence of the meaning of the whole

Vedic teaching: in brief, the knowledge of its teaching will lead to the realization of all human aspirations.,,132 In his Gita-dhyanam (the opening meditation of the Gita-

Bhashya), the famous verse expresses the same thought by a simile that all the

Upanishads are the cows (~avo), Krishna the cowherd (Gopala nandana) who milks the cows and feeds Arjuna, the calf (bhakta) with Gita, the cream (amrtam).133 This shows

Sankara's view of the Gita as entirely dependent on the Upanishads, and, undoubtedly,

Sankara is right in saying so. However; Sankara does not mention of Gita's dependence , on, or its subordination to, the scriptures in the Gita-Bhashya text itself.134

Contrary to Sankara, many translators add the 'colophon' at the end of each chapter of the Gita, which says that 'the Krishna-Arjuna dialogue is an Upanishad' that teaches

Brahma-jnana and yoga-sastra. But one cannot build an argument to support the sruti status of the Gita from a colophon, for scholars, such as Belvalkar, observe that the colophon is much later than the text itself, and that it may have been added at the time when the Gita was included into the Mahabharata epic. 135

Vadekar puts forth an interesting way of looking at the history of the philosophic speculation of the three writings: the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Gita, utilizing the

Hegelian dialectic of 'thesis, antithesis and synthesis.' As Sankara insists, and Ramanuja

132 C. M. Thomas, Twentieth Century Indian Interpretations of BhagavadGita: Tilak, Gandhi and Aurobindo, (Bangalore: ISPCK, 1987), 10. Thomas has a degree from the McMaster University, Canada, Ph. D from the Christian Theological Research Centre, Bangalore, India and an Advanced Study in Philosophy from the Banaras Hindu University, India. Thomas' research under the supervision of Prof. A. G. Arapura: taditam Gita-sastram samasta-veda-artha-sara-samgraha-bhutam ... J33 A. G. Krishna Warrier, (Tr.), "Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhashya Sri Sankaracharya," (Madras: Sri Publication, Vedanta Press, 2007), xIx, "" is the 'Opening Meditation' of the Gita-Bhashya. 134 P. M. Thomas, Twentieth Century, 20. 135 P. M. Thomas, Twentieth Century, 12. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 83 agrees, the Vedas and the Upanishads are, undoubtedly, the Gita's historico- philosophical antecedents, distinct from its socio-political background. To quote

Vadekar:

The Vedic period would be the thesis, the Upanishadic period the antithesis and the Gita the synthesis of the two .... Expanding the Hegelian formula, the thesis is the substance of the Vedic philosophy: a theological pluralism coupled with a practical Hedonism (search for human welfare and happiness). The antithesis is the Upanishadic reaction against the Vedic p~uralism: the quest for the one reality, Brahman that is behind the world and the final goal of realizing the identity of the Brahman and the Atman; renunciation of the world in the quest for the self as the highest good prescribed by the Upanishads. The Gita achieves the synthesis of the two: It stands neither for the Vedic "Pluralism" nor the Upanishadic "Singularism" but for the "Many which are the One and One which appears in the Many". The ethical ideal that the Gita presents is union with this "One," throughjnana, bhakti or karma." 136

K rishna Warrier, a Vedantin, who has translated and commented on the Gila, argues for the solid basis of Sankara's Gita-bhashya, and maintains that Sankara does not unfairly inflate jnana above bhakti and karma in the Gita's scheme of liberation but rather takes an objective view of the relevance of the threefold means to practical achievement of emancipation, and the mutual relations among karma, bhakti and jnana; the advaitic metaphysics of Sankara holds that actions pertain to one's aptitudes, capacities (4.11) and enlightenment, not to the immutable (kutastha) Reality (3.30; 11.34,). He charges those, who talk of Ramanuja being nearer to the intention of the Gita than Sankara [such as R.

C. Zaehner], of forgetting that the Gita is a unified work that has arrived at an ultimate

Monism. Sankara argues that the God of the Gita is personal-impersonal combining the attributes of a monotheistic deity and those of the Upanishadic Absolute Brahman; and therefore, devotion to saguna Isvara can be logically synthesized with knowledge of

136 P. M. Thomas, Twentieth Century, p. 18 is from D. D. Vadekar, The Synthetic Character of the Gila Teachings, in "Studies in the Gita," 54-55. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 84 nirguna Brahman. He further asserts that since devotion is only a means, or even an indispensable means to win the saving knowledge, the Gita necessarily blends devotion and knowledge as the means and the end respectively. 137

Warrier, an Advaitin, underscores the superiority of knowledge through two eloquent verses, 10.11 and 7.18 of the Gita. In the former, it is the lighted lamp of knowledge that destroys the darkness born ~ut of ignorance, and not karma yoga or bhakti yoga, and in the latter, the jnani is singled out among the four types of bhaktas as the very Self of the

Lord. It is very interesting to note how Sankara glosses 7.18 interpreting all the Me, My and Mine of Krishna, in the verse, as the highest Brahman, not Krishna son of Vasudeva

[a mere man], as given below:

All these four are indeed noble; even the first three are dear to Me. No devotee of Mine is other than dear to Vasudeva. But the knower is exceedingly dear. This is the distinction. Why? The answer is that the knower is the very Self - not different from Me. This is My settled doctrine. The knower seeks to ascend the very peak of knowledge: "I Myself am the Lord Vasudeva, I am none else." With a mind concerned on this knowledge, he strives to reach Me, the Supreme Brahman, the goal without parallel.

S ankaracharya's Bhagavad Gita Bhashyam (7.18). 138

To this same verse, Ramanuja gives a completely different gloss: The maintenance of My (God's) very self is dependent on my (individual's) self. God is as dependent on the individual self as the latter is on Him. 139

137 Warrier, Gita-Samiksha, x; p. 5-6.

138 Warrier, (Tr.), "Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhashyam of Sri Sankaracharya," (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Matth Publication, Vedanta Press, 2007 xv. The quotation is Warrier's translation of Sankara's gloss on 7.18 in the Bhagavad Gita Bhashyam of Sri Sankaracharya, 264. Warrier is a firm follower of Sankara.

139 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 250. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 85

The value of the Gita today among the Advaitins

This discussion illustrates the tension that the Advaitins pose between jnana and

bhakti, and their condescending attitude to assimilate bhakti into jnana as a lesser partner.

Ever since the bhakti religion became prominent, many Advaitins are combining

knowledge of the Brahma,,? with worship of the deities of the Visishtadvaitins or the

Saivites or others even at the present time: Sankara's Advaitic principle appears to have

become overlaid with a polytheistic tendency. The Non-dualists explain it thus:

worshipping God with qualities (sa-guna) appears as if he were the Absolute without

qualities; hence, worship does not pose any problems if you ~ believe in a dualism

separating you from God who has qualities. 140

In spite of this broadened outlook and practice, the centers of learning (Matts) thrive

in Sankara's name even today in the four corners of India (in Dwaraka, Puri, Bhadari and

Kanchipuram) and bear Sankara's argument that the phenomenal world of everyday

experience and its biological round of birth and death (samsara) is ultimately unreal and

the source of our bondage is taken as the basis for a monastic or ascetic life of

renunciation (sannyasa). Though there were ascetics before the time of the Upanishads,

Sankara gave asceticism an official backing. As caste is central to Uttara Meemamsa and

Purva Meemamsa, it is logical that Sankara prescribed sannyasa only for the Brahmin

men in the fourthpurushartha (stage of life).

Ramanuja called Sankara a cryptic Buddhist (prachanna-Buddha) waving a yellow

flag. Sankara perhaps borrowed the idea of formal monastic orders and institutions from

the Buddhists and worked them out for Hinduism. Besides, religious reversals have been

140 Wendy Doniger, "The Hindu," p. 508. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 86 effected by religious leaders, time and again, to gain power and numbers. Those who were defeated by Sankara in debate were proselytized, made to drop their own religion, whether Buddhism, lainism or any Hindu sect, and assume non-dualist Vedanta along with their disciples and followers, sometimes by the hundreds.

Sankara's 'kevala-advaita-jnana' ways to moksha are long and laborious; they

'isolated' its possibility for ~he 'privileged' that had access to the Vedas; a certain attitude of the Advaitins holding themselves superior is cultivated among themselves. The less- privileged people were obliged to accept the Advaitins' attitude of superiority. The effect of these prejudices on the bhakti religion and the bhaktas who were largely from the lower social classes necessitated the radical and revolutionary nature of Vaishnavism of

Ramanuja, which we will discuss next. 14J It should be remembered that the situation that

Sankara confronted, when he took up the explication of the context of the Gita, would be paralleled by what Ramanuja faced later on. 142

141 Watson and Kaserkodi, Bhakti Studies, (Delhi: Stirling Publishers, 1992), 132 ff: in Sankara, Ramanuja and Bhakti. 142 , The Song o/God, Tr. and , 1945, 13,22. In his introduction, Huxley calls the Gita as one of the most comprehensive summaries of the perennial philosophy ever to have been made. Hence Gita's enduring value, not only for Indians but for the whole world. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 87

3.1. B

SRIMAD RAMANUJACHARYA (C1017-1137CE): The Historic Necessity for His System:

Ramanuja is the originator of the philosophy of Visishtadvaita or Qualified non- dualistic Monism, but not the founder of the devotional (bhakti) cult. He is concerned with establishing the absolute, supremacy of the personal God (Krishna) not only over the phenomenal world, but most importantly, also over the impersonal Absolute, Brahman as well. In this, he reacts against the absolute monism of Sankara. It is important to note that the Gita forms the essential source of Ramanuja's teachings. 143

There had been a devotional aspect within the Hindu rel~gion in India several centuries before the Bhagavad-Gita had been written. The essential contribution of

Ramanuja to Indian thought was to have developed a coherent philosophical basis for the doctrine of bhakti to God in sharp contradistinction to Sankara's Advaita philosophy.

Ramanuja reconciled the mystic bhakti of the Alvars, the older Vedic tradition which included the inerrant Vedas, the prestigious Gita, the Brahma-Sutras, the socially inescapable smritis as interpreted by himself into one movement.

The tenth chapter of the Gita is profuse with the names of gods and deities: Vishnu,

Rudra-Siva, the Sun, the stars, moons, the storm gods; priests such as brahaspati, sages, seers, sacrifices, prayers and utterances of . However, a fresh surge of devotional fervor started in the Tamil country in the seventh century and spread to the rest of the subcontinent. Vishnu and Siva were the greater gods of this bhakti movement, which flourished among the indigenous people who were not pure Aryan. The religion caused a threat to Brahmin orthodoxy and a division between Aryan and . When

143 R. C. Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 8. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 88

Sankara came into the picture in the eighth century, he wrote his famous extensive commentaries on the three foundations of Vedanta philosophy: the prasthana-trayi (the chief Upanishads, the Brahma-sutras and the Gita) to advance his teachings of non- duality as superior to bhakti. In contrast, three centuries later, Ramanuja taught that worship of God required a distinction between the worshipper and the one worshipped, and wrote his critical comm,entaries on the Brahmasutra, the Gita and to counter the Advaitic teachings of Sankara. 144

Ramanuja is the first, ever, to challenge Sankara's non-dualism. Ramanuja's strong emphasis on bhakti is a powerful criticism of the radical monism of Sankara, and his philosophy is regarded as Qualified Monism. He reversed Sahkara's philosophy of priority of three tenets -a) the ultimate reality is the impersonal nirguna Brahman identical with individual atman; b) salvation is identity with Brahman by intellectual philosophical perfection; and c) recognition of this identity is by spiritual knowledge or insight. Ramanuja's counterparts to these three were: a) the supreme reality is the loving, compassionate personal God, who is distinct from the individual soul; b) liberation is by

God's grace when it becomes one with God yet separate enough to realize the bliss of union with the godhead; and c) liberation is attained by personal devotion, not knowledge per se. In other words, Ramanuja's system is one of eternal paradox between the supreme

Reality which is God and the human individual. Advaita is metaphysical idealism, and

144 David Burnett, The Spirit of Hinduism: a Christian Perspective on Hinduism, (London: Monarch, 1992), 184-88. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 89

Visishtadvaita is supreme realism of moving toward God through bhakti: the ideal pathway of life. 145

Ramanuja's first metaphysical tenet is the same as Sankhya but with some very fundamental differences. The conception of a single primordial unmanifested material principle is there. The main stages of the evolution of mahat and ahamkara are the same as in Sankhya. There is np hint of the atomic cosmology of Buddhism, J ainism or

Vaiseshika. The tri-gunas (, rajasa and tamasa) characterize prakriti. Ramanuja makes magnificent use of the gunas in his ethical and spiritual instruction. His gloss on the Gita (7.13-14) emphatically rejects any idea of illusion (maya), because, for him,

Nature is real, and 'maya' is the immense and wonderful productivity of Nature in God's hands as God's body as it were. Prakriti is an ontological verity, not a mere phenomenological presentation (naturalism); "this prakriti divided eight-fold is mine" (7.

4) is the focal point. Prakriti, one with God, is immanence and vibhuti or the wonderful glory of God (Gita, chapter 10). Besides, even all of Nature and all the (the lower and higher prakriti), together .do not exhaust God. They are only a fraction of God, and immortal. According to Ramanuja applies the philosophy of Nature (vibhuti) eliminates three errors: that Nature is illusion; naturalistic denial of supra-cosmic ground of Nature; and uncritical shallow pantheism, which are essentially forms of (10.42).146

For Ramanuja, bhakti is supreme while Advaitic impersonal knowledge of Brahman is considered to be imperfect. Hence, 'Liberation' in Ramanuja, means something completely different from the 'Salvation' in the Advaita. Salvation is by knowledge; but

145 M. Narasimhachari, "The Visishtadvaita Philosophy" in Perspectives o/Theism and Absolutism, ed. T. N. Ganapathy (Madras: Vivekananda College, 1978) 13; and S. S. Raghavachar, "The Gita According to Ramanuja," in Gita Samiksa, (Tirupati: Sri Venkateswara University, 1971), 13-14. 146 S. S. Raghavachar, Gita According to Ramanuja, in Gita Samiksa, 16. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 90 liberation is from human sin, from human predicament due to sin, from bondage to the world, and from karmic results of the past. Ramanuja postulates that the saving power of bhakti is a response to divine grace, and that bhakti can only become effective through the practice of meditation on the divine person.

Ramanuja admitted Sankara's salvation by knowledge, but declared that those saved by knowledge would find ~ state of bliss that is inferior to the highest bliss by bhakti.

The best means of salvation is bhakti, and the best yoga is bhakti-yoga; the worshipper is but a fragment of God, and wholly dependent on him. The three-fold. implication of divine immanence in the jiva is that it furnishes the jiva his or her support, controller and the source: thejiva is but a fragment of God's 'given share,' amsa U5.7; 11.18).

Ramanuja believes in the divine nature of the soul and its alienation from God in the earthly life. When the soul discovers the truth about God, as it walks towards union with

God, there is great joy in the soul. Although the highest state of bliss is permanent union with God, there must always remain a small degree of individual self-consciousness.

In the bhakti tradition, an alternative factor integral to bhakti is prapatti, which is a fundamental part of the message of the Gita. Ramanuja cites the Gila (18.62), which is very clear about it. Prapatti signifies abandonment of self for refuge (saranagati- tattvam), surrendering one's soul completely in the hands of God with all one's being and love' (sarva-bhavena), trusting in God's will, and waiting confidently to attain supreme- peace-and-eternal-abode (param-santi-sthanam) by God's grace (tat prasadat).147

147 Radhakrishnan agrees with Zaehner that 'fleeing' (seeking refuge) must be 'with all one's being,' and explicates 18.62 in the Advaitic way, that we must grow conscious of the 'Divine' on all the planes of our being from the spiritual to the physical: Christ too says that the First Commandment is that we love God 'with all our heart, strength and our being' and love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Mark 12.30-31) - as God commanded by the same words GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 91

Complete surrender (prapatti) excludes karma yoga including all practices, and including dhyana of the Upanishads, and a combination of both jnana yoga and karma yoga (action-knowledge-complex known as samuccaya) practiced in his time, as these were not exclusive means for release. On the basis of 11.48, 53-54 he believed prapatti alone was sufficient, for one cannot see God by the Vedas, sacrifice, study, alms, rituals or grim ascetic prastices but only by loving devotion addressed to God, none other; only bhaktas can know God as He is and enter into Him. 148

Although Ramanuja had inherited a long and rich tradition of prapatti and practiced it, he did not stress it but only hinted at it in his polemical commentaries; Raghavachar reasons, perhaps, because he addressed such works only to those who stressed on karma, jnana, or a combination (samuccaya) of karma-jnana for release. Nevertheless, later on, the Madhva School completely ruled out everything (jnana-karma-sannyasa-dhyana) other than prapatti. 149 This is similar to the German reformer, Martin Luther insisting that people need not strive to reach God: salvation is free, for it is not by works but by

God's grace alone through faith alone we are saved. The Catholics equally believed in salvation by Christ; but they made good works parallel faith and laid stress on the merit of good works. 150

through Moses in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 6.4). This is a demand to 'keep up' the covenant relationship of reciprocal passionate love between God and the human being.

Arjuna is called upon to 'co-operate' with God and do his duty. He must change the 'whole orientation of his being.' He must put himself at the service of the Supreme. His illusion will then be dispelled, the bond of cause and consequence will be broken and he will attain shadowless light, perfect harmony and supreme blessedness. I am the true vine and you are my branches .... If you 'remain' in me and I in you, and you 'remain' in my love, and obey my commandments, whatever you ask in my name it will be granted to you (John 15. 5 - 9).

148 M. Narasimhachari, Perspectives a/Theism, 17-18. 149 M. Narasimhachari, Perspectives a/Theism, 16 150 Tim Dowley, Ed., History of Christianity, (Oxford: Lion Publishing, 1977),370-72. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 92

Ramanuja says that the whole discourse of Krishna in the Gita is for the resurrection of the spirit of Arjuna, who is a 'prapanna' (a practitioner of prapatti). Prapatti generates bhakti when the bhakta is depressed for want of it; when prapatti is made part of bhakti, it confers on it completeness and makes it fully effective. Its entire meaning is prayerful and complete transfer of spiritual responsibilities to God in order that he will function in the abundance of his grac~ as the 'sadhana' for the devotee's attainment of him. The culminating unit of teaching in 18.66, undoubtedly, is the essence of bhakti, viz., an exhortation to 'surrender.' 151

For Ramanuja, God is a personal being, a God of grace, who is full of love for his creation who seeks to unite the human being with himself. He chuld even override the power of karma to draw repentant sinners to himself. This personal and compassionate

God is quite different from Sankara's impersonal World Soul (Divine), which made the illusory universe as a sort of sport (lila). But Ramanuja's God needs the human being as much as the human being needs God. Ramanuja thrusts this sense into Gita 7.18 to imply that just as a wise individual jiva cannot live without God, God too cannot live without the In. d' IVl 'd U al"Jlva. 152

Zaehner considers this as totally variant from the whole tone of the Gita. Hence this seems to me to be the important point of departure. A. L. Basham explains that the individual soul, made by God out of his own essence, returned to its maker and lived forever in full communion with him, but was always distinct. It was one with God but yet

151 S. S. Raghavachar, Gita According to Ramanuja, 38-39. In bhakti-yoga 'sadhana' is 'planned self­ effort' or 'means' to go straight to the goal; in Visishtadvaita it is action and knowledge ultimately culminating in 'devotion'; the other accepted path is 'prapatti.'

152 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 251, n. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 93 separate, and for this reason, the system of Ramanuja was called Visishtadvaita (qualified monism)

Ramanuja's Nature of God in the Gita 153

The Gita's crowning phase of metaphysics is the Nature of God. However, conspicuous that it does not offer any proof for His existence. Ramanuja says that the

Brahma-sutra may discuss ~uch proofs but since the Gita is revelation of God Himself to

Arjuna, and speaks of saving knowledge, there is no need to offer proof for His existence.

The self-revelation of God is the best proof, it discloses truth, dispels ignorance (18.72-

73). Ramanuja's theology is not natural philosophy like Sankara's or Thomas Aquinas' based on reason but revealed theology based on faith (17.3).154

When the self-revelation came in the form of a vision portrayed in the eleventh chapter of the Gita, Arjuna could not see God because he had no vision of God until God graciously supplied him with divine eyes (divya cakshu). Ramanuja says that Arjuna did not have the fitness for the experience of God; it was brought to him as 'direct experience' (pratiyaksha-avagamam) by bhakti: this is a very significant epithet that the

Gita gives to bhakti (9. 2). The experience given to Arjuna is considered to be veridical because it was established by two considerations: 1) it was not a mere novel empirical experience; a wishful recollection of something seen before, or an object out of a dream;

2) it was authentic because it was a whole comprehensive experience which made sense in an otherwise illogical situation: it was experiencing a combination of empirical multiplicities in a mystical situation, which brought sense, clearly and distinctly. ISS

153 J. A. B. Van Buitenen, Ramanuja on the BhagavadGita (S-Gravenhage: H. L. Smit's), 45-47: Who is the Supreme Brahman? (V.22; 28). 154 S. S. Ragavachar, Gita According to Ramanuja, Gita Samiksha, 22. 155 S. S. Ragavachar, Gita According to Ramanuja, Gita Samiksha, 23. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 94

Arjuna was commanded to 'behold' (pasya) the multiplicity of the world integrated at a single point in the single supreme reality called God (11.7, 13): there is nothing other than God which surpasses Him. This is like Saint Anselm's prayer,156 "Now we believe you are something than which nothing greater can be thought.... for I do not seek to understand in order to believe; I believe in order to understand ... for I also believe that unless I believe, I shall not vnderstand." Anselm comes to the conclusion that God cannot be understood not to exist. Those who already believe that God exists have a better understanding that God exists. According to Anselm, human beings are created to see

God: obtain a vision of God through God's own illumination whereby faith becomes unnecessary. 157

For Ramanuja, God is the highest reality and not a phenomenal or conditioned version of a higher Absolute Brahman as he is for Sankara, for example. Akshara

(imperishable) spoken in the twelfth chapter (12.1) is the same as the

(controller) of the thirteenth chapter (1-4; 12-18), and the fifteenth chapter (16-20) definitely places Purushothama (the Personal God, Isvara) above the akshara Brahman.

Not only is the akshara Brahman surpassed, but akshara Brahman itself constitutes a power of God, the para-prakriti wielded by Him. Krishna appropriates the title Uthama-

156 Saint Anselm's (1033-1109) Classical Ontological Argument, in Michael Peterson et aI, Ed. , (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 178 79. See Zaehner's notes on p. 167 for Gita 3. 15: The 'imperishable Brahman': Sankara derives this as the 'supreme Self,' the 'akshara Brahman' or the Veda, but Ramanuja as 'material Nature and the individual imperishable self,jivatman' (both Nature and individual self are the body of God) the highest Brahman. See also Zaehner p. 258 for Gita 8.3, 21-22: In 8.3 the imperishable is the 'highest Brahman' in 8. 21-22 it is the Unmanifest beyond the Unmanifest, or the higher exalted 'person' who is clearly 'God.' Arjuna understands the 'imperishable' as 'God' in the theophany (11. 37-38) and later as the one who transcends both the 'perishable' and the 'imperishable' (15. 17, n, P. 366-67). Thus we see the "three ": 1) the perishable individual self in bondage to material Nature, 2) the imperishable Brahman and 3) the imperishable Person (purushothama) above the imperishable Brahman. 157 Saint Anselm's Ontological Argument, Philosophy of Religion, 17879. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 95 purusha or Purushothama, the All-sublime, All-Highest-Self, who does not perish, sustains all the three worlds (15.17) .. We have a summary of the Gita's teaching of God's identity in Krishna's lAms (9.18) and in Arjuna's words (10.12-14).158 Krishna is often called Yogesvara in the Gita, and Ramanuja understands yoga in this context as wealth of divine attributes. 159

Ramanuja rages at th~ Advaitic saying that nirguna-brahman becomes sag una-

Isvara out of compassion to the dull-witted, and calls it an aberration of Advaita, for nirguna cannot possibly harbor compassion, which is a true nature of Divinity.

Compassionate self-disclosure and saving the devout in distress constitute the dynamic essence of the avatar. While Advaita takes metaphysical attributes~such as self-existence, consciousness, joy (sat-cit-ananda), purity and infinity for granted, the Gila takes particular care to dwell on the love and compassion of God. Ramanuja projects the elements of beauty and the grace of God from the visva-rupa where the two eyes are the sun and the moon that symbolize dazzling grandeur (pratap) and the grace (prasad) of

God (11.19): the love (bhakti) aspect pervades the entire text of the Gita. 160

The whole world belongs to God; Krishna tells Arjuna to see His sovereign skill-in- works; that He spins the world as the moola-prakriti; in Him subsist all beings, He does not subsist in them; his self sustains all beings and causes them to be-and-grow (9.4-5).

Sankara glosses that Krishna is speaking of Self in its essence, while Ramanuja explains

158 Gita 9.18: Krishna declares, "I am the way, sustainer, Lord, witness, true home, refuge, origin, dissolution and the stable state between, a treasure-house, the seed that does not pass away. : Arjuna praises that Krishna is the highest-Brahman, highest-home, abode of purity, divine, primeval, unborn eternal Person (10.12-14).

159 S. S. Raghavachar, Gita According to Ramanuja, 22-28. 160 See Chapter Two of this paper which has a comprehensive study of the Gita's verses on bhakti and its synonyms. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 96 it is not because He contains them like water in a pot but because He maintains them in existence by His will (sankaZpa)'. Much thought, at once subtle, far-reaching and profound is packed into these enigmatic words of the Gita and Ramanuja offers effective direction for their elucidation. 161

Although stating that Ramanuja was not as brilliant a metaphysician as Sankara,

Basham nevertheless avows, that Indian religion perhaps owes more to Ramanuja than to his predecessor. The effect of his work lasted many centuries after him, and his ideas spread all over India, and were the starting-point of most of the devotional sects of later times. Two important reasons for this wide-spread, ripple effect were its universal appeal to people of all class and gender, and that his on the pra'~thana-trayi, written to refute Sankara, could be read by Sanskrit scholars all over India. 162 In the south,

Ramanuja's disciples translated them into Tamil which the people came to cherish.

Saivism has a similar, but more elaborate, philosophy of God, salvation and bhakti.

Saivite bhakti is abundant with the concepts of God's tender love of all; the bhakta's love of God, and salvation by pure grace to all penitent sinners. Nonetheless, Saivism mostly remained within the Tamil country, except for Kashmir, for the reason that the Tamil

Saivite sages wrote their songs and doctrines only in Tamil, unlike Ramanuja. 163

161 S. S. Raghavachar, Gita According to Ramanuja, 22-27. 'Subsisting in God' is not an easy matter to understand. The contingent beings dwell in Him, and He in them, but not in the sense of drawing His being from them in the same way they do from Him. Their being and their subsisting in Him happen purely by His determination. This is called 'creative immanence' along with 'transcendent perfection' and 'self­ sufficiency;' and it is immanence by 'inward choice' and 'no external necessity'.

162 Basham, Wonder That Was India, 335. 163 Generally speaking, within the Tamil speaking country, Saivism is abundantly widespread, has numerous followers and magnificent temples while Vaishnavism has fewer people and smaller temples. Practically speaking, many Hindus worship both Siva and Vishnu, and have names such as Siva-Raman, or Hari-Haran combining Siva and Vishnu. Ramanuja intentionally chose to write his system in Sanskrit to challenge Sankara's which was in Sanskrit, and had spread easily among the Brahmin class. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 97

As for questions about the sovereignty of God and the freedom of the will - (also debated in Christian theology), Ramanuja assumed that human beings were free to make their choices, but he never pursued the implications of the idea. His disciples, however, were sharply divided on this and brought about two schools of thought, the northern and the southern schools with an interesting analogy based on the monkey-cat-principle

(katcha-manti-nyaya). In the monkey principle (vada-kalai or Northern School), the mother monkey carries its baby on its back or the belly but the baby has to cling to the mother as it is transported to the safe destination: the believer must do something to arrive safely at salvation. In the cat principle (,then-kalai' or Southern School), the mother carries the kitten by the scruff of the neck, and the baby dobs nothing: salvation is merely by the grace and will of God. 164

Ramanuja's reformation is an unfinished attempt. Much to his credit, he propounded a revolutionary idea of removing castes on the basis of the Gita. But his followers, men of high intellectual caliber such as and , did not carry forward Ramanuja's humanistic aspect but made the religion more rigid in terms of orthodoxy and observance of caste system. Sankara and Vedanta Desika are examples of this sort of woodenness. To expect anyone to abolish caste hierarchy in those days would be futile. Not even the Buddha, Ramanuja, or Gandhi could accomplish it. It has grown much stronger with time. Castes multiplied like insects and plagued the Indian society. 165

164 Basham, Wonder That Was India, 331-38. 165 Kandadai Seshadri, and Social Change, in The Unfinished Reformation (Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & co., 1998), 124-153. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 98

CHAPTER 3. 2

BHAKTI IN MODERN TIMES: TWO MODERN COMMENTATORS OF THE GITA

We will now examine two modem Indian commentators of the Gita, Bal Gangadhar

Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi who were two of the towering' s,ocio-political-religious figures of the last two centuries, who emphasize two different aspects of 'devotional action' of the Gila. Despite differences and disagreements regarding beliefs and methods, both were men of ceaseless activity, who worked to rebuild India with an emphasis on social action. Historian, K. M. Panikkar writes,

The leaders of the Hindu renaissance re-discovered the Gita not only as the kernel of Indian religion and philosophy, but also as the political and social gospel of Hindu India: Gita's bold synthesis of philosophy and religion has reconciled the claims of the head and heart. 166

3.2. A

LOKAMANYA BALGANGADHAR TILAK (1856 -1920)

Tilak is called the Father of the Indian unrest and maker of modem India by D. V.

Tahmankar 167 in his authorized biography of Tilak. In this paper, and with due respect,

166 K. M. Panikkar, The Foundations ofNew India, (London: Allen and Unwin, 1963),36. 167 D. V. Tahmankar, Tilak: Father of Indian Unrest and Maker of Modern India, (London: 1956) in his 'authorized biography of Tilak, calls him Tilak is called the "Father of Indian Unrest and Maker of Modern India" GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 99 we will refer to him simply as Tilak. Long overshadowed by his younger contemporary,

M. K. Gandhi, his life and thought are now receiving due recognition a century after his death in 1920. As a freedom-fighter, and as leader of the Nationalist wing of the

Congress Party, Tilak's emphasis was on social action rather than devotional action; he reinterpreted the Gita as a philosophy of activism rather than quietism.

THak is remembered. by his monumental commentary on the Gita, Srimad

BhagavadGita-Rahasya or Karma-Yoga-Sastra, 168 or in short, the Gita-Rahasya, which means the 'Secret of the Gita.' Ever since the publication of the Gita-Rahasya in 1915, the BhagavadGita became the focus of Indian thinking and opened a new path for many other national leaders. It is a lengthy commentary, written in Mhrathi, within the four winter months of 1910-11 from his prison cell in Mandalay (Burma); he was serving a six year sentence of hard labor for inciting the against the . His younger contemporary, Mahatma Gandhi, although in disagreement with certain aspects of Tilak's Gita-Rahasya, still characterized it as a masterwork unsurpassed, and will remain so for a long time to come. 169

Tilak was searching for an authoritative, popular religious literary tool that would induce Indians to do their duty; and he found all that in the Gita, a sacred Hindu scripture with a philosophy that stressed karma yoga, insisting passionately upon the warrior's duty to fight. He needed a philosophy of activism to bring Hinduism out of its ancient

168 B. G. Tilak, Srimad BhagavadGita-Rahasya or karma-yoga-sastra (Poona: Tilak Brothers Publications, 1915). 'Gita Rahasya' means secret or esoteric teaching ofthe Gita. It was written in Marathi and went through several editions before it was translated into Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Kanarese, Telugu, Tamil, and English. The English edition is a translation by D. S. Sukthaankar, (Poona: Tilak Brothers, 1935,2 Vol.). Tilak was recognized as an able Sanskritists by both Indian and Western scholars. The Gita-Rahasya was seized by the British and returned after a Government Marathi expert had examined it carefully and declared it as free of seditious passages. 169 D. Mackenzie Brown, The Philosophy of Bal Gangadhar Tilak: Karma vs. Jnana in Gita Rahasya, in The Journal ofAsian Studies, Vol. 17, No.2 (Feb. 1958), 197-206, (198). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 100

books and , and to rouse the Indian intelligentsia into social and political

action, and to combat against the hold of western ideologies on Indian thinking. The Gita

was the best choice.

However, Tilak's immediate and senous problem was Sankara's orthodox

commentary of Advaitic teaching of renunciation which is against action (karma): while

actions are helpful to humaQ. beings seeking perfection, they must be renounced once that

perfection is achieved. Sankara goes on to say that, "even dharma (duty) is a sin in the case of him who wishes liberation.,,170 Though Tilak concedes Sankara to be superman

and a great sage, he accuses Sankara's remarks about the Gita in his commentary

(BhagavadGita-Bhashya) of being a mere show of admiration 6r belittling the Gita's

statements as energism; he calls Sankara's advice of renunciation of action in the - (the present epoch) a queer idea.17l 172 In contrast, Tilak asserts that the Gita's philosophy is precisely one of action and not renunciation, and he argues that social and political action is the duty of all citizens when a nation is threatened by internal decay or political oppression.

Tilak thinks the practice of renunciation allowed by the Vedic Samhitas and

Brahmanas is an anachronism in the modern age, because action (karma) had already been. justified by the Vedas. 173 He finds the Upanishads of the pre-epic India responsible for the emphasis on knowledge and renunciation over action, and for looking upon the

Vedic samhitas and brahmanas as inferior to the Upanishads. 174 He calls it the genius of

170 Srimad Sankaracharya, BhagavadGita-Bhashya, Tr. A. G. Krishna Warrier, (Madras: Ramakrishna Matt, 1996),220: VI. 3; 157; IV. 21. 171 Tilak, Gita-Rahasya, 1, 18, 20. 172 Tilak, Gita-Rahasya, 1,510 - 511. 173 Rig Veda, (X, 151; IX, 113; 11, 12): path of action is essential, not the path of renunciation. 174 1, 2, 10: recommends the equitable state where both friend and foe are seen alike. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 101 the Gita that has reconciled the 'Activism' of the Vedas and the 'Quietism' of the

Upanishads, and praises Ramanuja who teaches, that even the perfected man must do karma-yoga. 175,I76

Nonetheless, a problem remains for him, because the Gita refers to Arjuna's karma- yoga as caste duty, not public welfare. So the question is how kshatriya duty can be applicable to the other caste~, viz., Brahmins, Vaisyas and Sudras, or to all the patriots of

India to fight against a foreign rule that was disintegrating the Indian society? By caste,

Tilak was a Brahmin. Another problem he faced with the Gita was that its karma-yoga was devoted to self-realization through service to others: How can he use the Gita' s sattvika (intelligence and goodness) to justify political action? H~w can India renounce action in the face of slavery or fight a responsible war without causing anarchy?

Tilak sums up his position in two statements in his Gita-Rahasya: (1) "Our religious texts have clearly stated that in the kali-yuga, that is, after the date of the and the , the path of renunciation is prohibited (Gita-Rahasya 11, 701); and (2) "It is clear that in any country whatsoever, the persons who wield the destinies of the country must be supporters of the Path of Action (Gita-Rahasya 11, 700; Gita, 11.33; 18. 48). 177

Tilak does not approve of either total renunciation of action or pacifist behavior of the Indian leaders with the British officials, or gradual social reform to gain independence at a later time, or performance of minor liberal reformations at this critical time.

For Tilak, the exemplar is the brilliant Maratha chief, Sivaji of Pune (1627-80), who fought against the Mughals, especially Afzul Khan, without desiring the fruit of his deeds

175 Ramanuja, Gitabhashya, XVIII. 48: One is born with action; one must not neglect established action; action is easier than renunciation or knowledge; all undertakings, whether of action or knowledge, are surrounded by evil and pain anyway. 176 Mackenzie Brown, Philosophy ofBal Gangadhar Tilak on Karma vs. inana in Gita Rahasya, 197-206. l77 Mackenzie Brown, "Philosophy of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, 202 - 203. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 102 except that of saving the Maratha Country. Tilak advises compatriots to first enter into the high atmosphere of the BhagavadGita, and then consider the action of great men like

Sivaji, and the present situation in India - for the context compels action (18.59) - as it did for Arjuna. As each of the three paths, karma, jnana and bhakti has its place under a particular context, the Gita's karma yoga is supremely suitable for the present context.

Tilak's emphasis is on so<;ial action for public welfare rather than devotional action

(bhakti) for individual salvation. Let me close this section on Bal Gangadhar Tilak with an assessment of Tilak by Mackenzie Brown:

Tilak was correct in insisting that the doctrine of action is an ancient one in India and that European energism is not the only theoretical foundation available for leadership in the new India. None went so far and so consistently as Tilak in using the Gita as the philosophical basis of universal action. His profound analysis of the Gita, although doubtless not free from emotional bias (for Tilak was a man of passionate convictions), served to underwrite and rationalize the vigor of the later Indian Nationalist movement and the Gandhian program. 178

178 Mackenzie Brown, Philosophy of Bat Gangadhar Tilak, 203. Dayananda (1824-83) founder of the militant summed up his own credo, 'God is one, and the Vedas are His word'; therefore Dayananda refused to recognize the authority of the Gita and limited the scriptural sources of his movement to the Vedas. Vivekananda (1862-1902) seems to support the viewpoint of Sankara although he stresses the severe necessity of action for almost all Indians in this day and age, except for those rare few who might be qualified for moksha, or liberation, action should be renounced. Aurobindo (1872-1950) gives more scholarly attention to the Gita than any other contemporary leader with the exception of Tilak himself. Like Ramanuja, Aurobindo places devotion at the top of the three paths of conduct, but insists that the Gita is a synthesis of all the three (202). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 103

3.2. B MAHATMA GANDHI (1869-1948),

Tilak's mantle fell on Mahatma Gandhi. It is symbolic that Gandhi began his all-out

attack upon the British Imperial rule by inaugurating the national non-cooperation

movement, by coincidence, on the day of Tilak's death, August 1, 1920: he mourned,

"My strongest bulwark is gone," although G. K. Gokhale, the~ moderate leader was

Gandhi's political guru. When Gandhi entered the Congress Council four years earlier, he

used the Gita to promote a mass program of restive action towards (self-rule),

which demanded participation by Brahmin and Sudra alike.

Coming from Gujarat on the western side of peninSUlar India, the home of the Vedist

Dayananda and the lains, Gandhi clung to the old Vaishnava and Jaina traditions, which

influenced him deeply. He disagreed with Rabindranath Tagore on several points: in the

diagnoses of India's ills and the prescriptions for cure. But it seems to be Tagore 179 who

addressed Gandhi for the first time as 'Mahatma' (Great Soul) when he visited

Shantiniketan in 1915. lawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, who admired

179 Tagore (1861-1941) was a westernized Indian from the cosmopolitan city of Calcutta, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for the collection of his poems, "Gitanjali" (Song Offerings) published in Bengali in 1912 and translated by him later: in the eyes ofthe west he had vindicated the Indian culture. He had already founded the 'Shantiniketan School' at a rural setting near Calcutta, to develop creative and performing arts ofIndia, and later in 1921 opened in the same place the '­ Bharati University' for world brotherhood and cultural interchange. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 104 both Gandhi and Tagore, says that both were 'wholly India' at the same time, complementing each other representing different but harmonious aspects of India. 180

Gandhi wrote his Commentary on the Gita in Gujarati, so that the ordinary person could read it easily in his own language and understand it. His close friend in the freedom-struggle, , rendered it in English, with his own bias which

Gandhi approved of, and pt;lblished it in 1946 as "The Gita According to Gandhi or The

Gospel of Selfless Action," just two years before India achieved its Independence.

Of all the nationalist leaders, Gandhi comes closest to accepting karma yoga as the essence of the Gita, although in Tilak's exclusive sense. Gandhi believed that action as (sacrifice) is necessary for all persons, and moksha is to be achieved in our time by bodily activity for the service of the world. 181 Gandhi differed sharply from Tilak about the attitude of the Gita towards violence, as Mahadev Desai puts it, for Gandhi non- violence is incidental to the main problem of action versus non-action. 182 However,

Gandhi and Tilak agree to see the Gita in different settings.

Gandhi first learned about the Gita from his English friends when he was a student of law in , through Mathew Arnold's translation of it in English. He considered it priceless. Like a mother, he said later on, it had never failed him whenever he found himself in difficulty or distress.

People debated whether the Mahatma was an Advaitin or a Visishtadvaitin. The

Advaitins believe only in the One formless, undefinable Brahman (also called Atman),

180 lawaharlal Nehru, Discovery of India (London: Meridian, 1947),342-43. Tagore, the aristocratic artist, turned democrat with proletarian sympathies essentially represented the cultural tradition of India. Gandhi, a man of the people, the embodiment of the Indian peasant, represented another tradition of India, that of renunciation and asceticism: Tagore, a man of thought, Gandhi a man of ceaseless activity. 181 Mahadev Desai, Gita According to Gandhi or The Gospel of Selfless Action (Ahmedabad: Navjivan Press, 1946), 130. Desai was Gandhi's secretary, adviser, and chronicler for twenty-four years.

182 Mahadev Desai, Gita According to Gandhi, 132-33: Ahimsa GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 105 and the Visishtadvaitins acknowledge the existence of a God, who is Param-Atman, or

'ultimate reality' to whom one and all will have to yield in complete surrender. Gandhi himself never revealed which philosophy he leaned to more. His belief, 'Truth is God,' pays allegiance to both Brahmanism and theism. He was a free-thinker and a genuine

Hindu although he had deep respect for the tenets and doctrines of other religions including Christianity. He Sflid what the Sermon-on-the-Mount gave graphically, the Gita presented to him as a formula. 183

The greatest single message that Gandhi derives from the Gita is the doctrine of ahimsa

(non-violence), and the next was ahimsa combined with satya (truth), inseparable like the two sides of a coin. Ahimsa is primarily a Buddhist principle whicft the Gita has absorbed into itself. Ahimsa is the means and satya the end, or the other way round. Although the

Gita does not talk about ahimsa as such in detail, Gandhi eked out connotations from the contexts, as in any poetry. Gandhi derives the Gita's contribution of nuances, implications and undertones of ahimsa by reading and re-reading it with care. Ahimsa is the cream he obtains from the churning of 'desirableness in action'. He commends ahimsa to be one's supreme duty, and believes that renunciation of fruits of action can alone lead to self-realization and moksha. For him, renunciation is the sun around which bhakti and jnana and the rest revolve like planets. 184 He taught eleven Gita-values in his ashrams, schools and prayer meetings: non-violence, truth, non-attachment, non- possession, not merely non-stealing but not possessing more than what you need,

183 K. Chandrasekaran, Gita as Interpreted by Mahatma Gandhi, in 'Gita Samiksha Conference' by the Department of Sanskrit of the Venkatesvara University, Tirupati, India, in March 1970, 154. Here Chandrasekaran quotes from Gandhi's column in the weekly news paper, "," (22-12-1927). 184 Chandrasekaran, Gita as Interpreted by Mahatma Gandhi, ISS. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 106 celibacy, action, fearlessness, universal uplift and responsible etc. 185 Gandhi saw the evil of untouchability and caste distinctions:

There is an ineffaceable blot (untouchability) that Hinduism carries with it, ... It is to my mind a curse that has come to us. And so long as that curse (cruelty) remains with us, so long we are bound to consider that every affliction in this sacred land is a proper punishment for the indelible crime that we are committing. 186

Though he fought against untouchability, he did not go far enough to eradicate it. What prevented him, I wonder.

Gandhi firmly believed that the Gita contains the gospel of service, and insists, that the people should learn this from a very early age: so he advised the students of Tiruppur,

Tamil Nadu, to read the Gita everyday early in the morning (4 am) either in Sanskrit or in ~ Tamil but not in English because the English rendering could not impart the true significance of the Gita (25 Oct. 1927). His favorite text for students were 2.55-72 on sthita- or steady wisdom, and 3.5-6, that man is made for work: for no one can stand still even for a moment without doing any work; everyone is made to act helplessly by the impulses born of nature. He who restrains his organs of action but continues in his mind to brood over the objects of sense, whose nature is deluded, is said to be a hypocrite, (a man of false conduct).

Devotion (bhakti) occupies an equally important place in Gandhi's outlook in general. His 'devotee' (bhakta) is the same as the 'integrated' (yukta), the 'ideal man' and

185 Raghavan Iyer, "Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi" (1990; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 10, 160. 186 M. K. Gandhi, : an anthology of writings on his life, work and ideas, Ed., Louis Fischer (New York: Random House, 1962),41,132-37; 251-57; 219-220; 251-57; 300 GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 107 the individual with sthitaprajna (steady wisdom) of Gita 2. 56- 65, whom Zaehner calls the 'athlete of the spirit,' the devotee (bhakta) or the fully integrated person. 187

He compares his task of (non-violent resistance) to a holy war. He calls it a happy augury, as a telegram from a friend said, that this book (his commentary on the

Bhagavad-Gita) was being published at the right time, when his own holy war is entering its last phase, like Arjuna's in Kurukshetra. 188

A true bhakta is also a jnani, a jivan-mukta (attains mukti while still alive), the

Perfect Man (2.56-58), whom Gandhi compares to water that ascends high as water vapor, becomes cloud and descends as drops of rain to fructify the earth (3.14).

Gandhi believes that the Gita had a message, distinct from the earlier scriptures, that it came down to deliver humanity. Gandhi is impatient with critics who accused him of introducing religion into politics, for that is what the Lord had exhorted every individual: to infuse every act of his with a sense of devotion to God, leaving always the results to

God's special consideration (10. 10). Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer in sacrifice or give away in alms, whatever penance you may perform, offer it to

Me" (9. 27). 189

187 The Gita's integrated person is the Perfect Man, One who is not jealous of anyone, who is a fount of mercy, who is without egotism, who is selfless, who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery, who is ever forgiving, who is always contented, whose resolutions are firm, who has dedicated mind and soul to God, who causes no dread, who is not afraid of others, who is free from exultation, sorrow and fear, who is pure, who is well-versed in action and yet remains unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit, good and bad, who treats friend and foe alike, who is untouched by praise, who does not go under when people speak ill of him, who loves silence and solitude, who has a disciplined reason; such devotion is inconsistent with existence at the same time of strong attachments.' (2. 56- 65) Mahadev Desai, Gita According to Gandhi (Ahmedabad: Navjivan Press, 1953), 129. 188 Raghavan Ayer, Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, 6.

189 St. Paul's letter to the Colossians 3: 17is similar: "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the Father, through him." GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 108

Whatever you do, of this verse, Zaehner renders as whatever karma (work) you perform. The Vedic sacrifices were kriya (work, actions) done with appropriate fruits in mind: the gods will give me something in return, i.e., sons, prosperity or victory over enemies, as cited in the early chapters of the Gita (3. 11). But the Gita supersedes this kind of sacrifice, and drums into the ear, actions must be done disinterestedly, if they should not lead one to futUl;e births. Action and self-sacrifice are duty to God, and both belong to goodness (17. 11).190

Gandhi is an exemplar of the fully integrated man, the flame without a flicker (Gita

6.18), till his very end: he had finished his last fasting and prayer for Hindu-Muslim unity just two days before he was shot dead by the bullets of the assassin, N athuram Godse, on

January 30, 1948. He fell with a murmur, "Oh, God" ("he, Ram"). Nathuram was a

Brahmin in his thirties, the editor of a Hindu Mahasabha weekly in Poona, with extreme

Hindu beliefs - India for Hindus alone; no place for Hindu-Muslim and India- unity. Louis Fischer calls his death Gandhi's last victory. 191 Prime Minister Nehru conveyed the news of the loss to the country by radio, "The light has gone out of our lives ... but the light that has illumined this country for these many years will illumine for more years, and a thousand years later it will still be seen in this country and the world will see it "

It suffices to conclude that Gandhi displayed an amalgamation of the three gunas and the of the Gita in his life: as a sattvika-jnana-yogi-statesman, a brave-rajasa-

190 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 283: 9. 27, n.

191 Louis Fischer, The Essential Gandhi: an anthology of his writings, life, work and ideas (New York: Vintage Books, 1983),367-69. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 109 karma-yogi-freedom-fighter, and a renouncing-bhakti-yogi-half-naked-Vaisya-Harijan - seeking moksha by performance (work).

Next we will see some of the critiques by four modern interpreters of the Gita. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 110

CHAPTER 4

CRITICAL VIEWS OF FOUR GITA INTERPRETERS

4.1 A. J. Appasamy

According to Bishop Appasamy, the polytheistic faith of the Rig Veda (1200-800

BCE) had tended to develop in the direction of Monotheism. 192, 193 After the exit of the

flamboyant Aryan God, InGra, the moral God, Varuna, recedes and disappears after a

moment or two of popularity.194 In two of the Upanishads, the Katha and the

Svetasvatara, the theistic view received further significant development. In the Katha, the

bodiless God is immanent in all bodies as the inner controller of everything - as the

essence of Fire, Air and the Sun - and yet different from each of them; there is no evil in

Him. Katha 2.23 (which is exactly the same as Mundaka 3.23) teaches that not intellect

or knowledge but Self [whose grace] alone can reveal His own person. The late

Upanishad Svetasvatara contains the fullest expression of theistic belief to be found in

the Upanishads. God is concealed in the worlds as fire in wood and in butter; and

like a spider covers Himself with threads produced from primary matter according to His

own nature .... Vedic sacrifice and corporate rituals are replaced by worship and personal

experience, and the priest is substituted by the spiritual teacher, the Guru, who would

192 A. J. Appasamy, The BhagavadGita, in Gita Samiksa (Tirupati, Sri Venkateswara University, 1971), 121. This was his lecture at the Conference of Gita Scholars organized by the University.

193 A. J. Appasamy, The Theology of Hindu Bhakti (Bangalore: Christian Literature Society, 1970). Bishop Appasamy wrote this book at the invitation of the Serampore Theological College's Library series as a challenge to the Christian theologians asking, "Is there anything that needs to be absorbed in the life and essence of world Christianity?

194: 'The moral god Varuna existing in prominence for a moment or two' is reminiscent of Nietzsche's words, : "Once upon a time, ... when knowledge was invented in a star in a twinkling solar system ... it was the most arrogant and mendacious minute in world history, but nevertheless, it was only a minute in F. W. Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, Chapter X in The Nietzsche Reader, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006), 114. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 111 manifest all his teachings to the bhakta (devotee) who will worship the Guru as God, presumably Siva (Svetasvatara U 6. 23). This is the first time in any Upanishad that the term "bhakti" appears.195

In the Gita, Appasamy says, Krishna is the soul of the world-unborn, without beginning and the mighty Lord of the world, and among men, he is undeluded and without sin: free, unbound, with benevolent attributes, ordering births and rebirths to human beings who are like mere puppets tied to a wheel (10.3; 9.7-10; 3.22-26; 18.61).

And yet, his attitude to the world is controlled and inspired by love. The doctrine of God set forth in the Gita is consistent and belongs to the higher types of theism. 196

However, Appasamy finds two strands in the Gila which beldng to its conception of

God. In thee first strand, Krishna accepts whatever paths people choose to approach to worship Him, or any other god, as if it is offered to Him, and reap the rewards of their choices, fruit of their works in this life or their final abodes, even though they are not the highest (4.11-12; 9.23-25). The second strand seems to indicate a monistic or pantheistic point of view (4.24; 7.8-10). Just like the Creator God Prajapati in the Rig Veda, Krishna alone is the offering as well as the oblation; it is God who offers it in the fire of God.

Human beings realize the One God in His works and reach Him alone. He is presented as the Supreme Creator God with splendid attributes, saguna, and also as the Vedantic

Supreme nirguna Brahman; the theistic and pantheistic doctrines, follow each other closely or loosely as if the two are not in conflict with each other (4.24 Brahman); 8.11

(Advaitin), 8.14-23 (God); 8.24 (Brahman). 197 Is this interweaving from Vyasa?

195 Appasamy, BhagavadGita, in Gita Samiksha, 122. 196 Appasamy, BhagavadGita, in Gita Samiksha, 125. 197 Appasamy, BhagavadGita, in Gita Samiksha 126. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 112

Appasamy asks, "Is the Gita, in essence, theistic or monistic? Why are these two diverse elements of reality brought together in it?" There are several explanations. Firstly, some say that the Gita is a poem and as its author is a poet, not a systematic thinker; his words swing according to his mood. However, Appasamy considers the author of the

Gita to be a capable thinker and poet whose poetry has a unified scheme. Garbe's explanation of this monistic-theistic confusion is that when Monism was becoming popular, a later editor may have used the Gita, an ancient sacred theistic literature, to interpolate the monistic passages into it. But it is hard to prove this convincingly. 198

Another explanation from Appasamy for the occurrence of theism and monism together in the Gita is that the author presents the contradicting Ideas side by side: the three paths to moksha, the two approaches, theistic and monistic to reach both the personal God and the impersonal Brahman, without attempting to eliminating one of them or resolving the issue?199 Rudolf Otto brings out an interesting explanation of a method called samuccaya (combination or summing up) that Sankaracharya uses with regard to saguna and nirguna Brahman. By use of this method, all confusion is removed and consistency prevails. "Nothing" is a term used for God by mystics in the superlative exaltation of the above all 'something.' When nirgunatvam (paravidya) is superior to sagunatvam (aparavidya) and the former does not deny the latter but the latter is taken into the former, by samuccaya, Sankara could pass between the two countless times until the distinction ceases. The significance of samuccaya is to assure the highest Brahman all the possible divine values of theism and include them in the conception of Brahman?OO

198 Appasamy, BhagavadGita, in Gita Samiksha 127. 199 Rudolf Otto, Mysticism East and West (1932, New York: Oberlin College Publication, 1970) 11 O. 200 Appasamy, BhagavadGita, on Sankara's method of samuccaya which combines both monism and theism into one (27). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 113

Unlike a paradox, a contradiction cannot be logically reconciled; yet, Sankara uses samuccaya to combine two opposites into a positive where, again, Advaita stands out.

Appasamy agrees with Ramanuja's explanation that God is not the apparatus of offering, He is immanent in it. He is not the devotee who offers, but He is immanent in the devotee. The line between theism and pantheism is always thin. Appasamy concludes that the devotee who is full, of God finds God in everything; he does not trouble to think out the logical implications of pantheism.201 Ramanuja gives a consistent point of view by explaining all seemingly monistic passages in the Gita by maintaining that they are really meant to teach belief in an immanent God. 202

For Appasamy, there is another question of even greater practical importance. If the

Gila has had an unrivalled hold on the thought and devotion of the people of India, at least of the thinkers who had had access to Sanskrit learning, how does it happen that

Theism has never become the dominant philosophy of India? The Bishop has a plausible answer. The Gila has failed to present a convincing case for Theism by accepting and allowing the worship of other gods. The Gita is satisfied in assigning secondary place to these lesser gods and pointing out that their worship would give only finite rewards of this world but not permanent mukti. Though the Gila does say that only those devotees who have ananya bhakti in Him alone (not on any other) will have the highest type of reward, Appasamy insists that this is not adequate to support Theism. No religion grows which compromises with lesser beings. Judaism's emphasis on faith in the Only Being, strict monotheism and rejection of idolatry, have had the greatest bearing on the

201 Appasamy, BhagavadGita: prayer, communion, intimate relationship with God, and the immanence of God (128 -29). 202 Appasamy, BhagavadGita, 129-130. The idea of an immanent, transcendent and incarnate God is in Christianity too. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 114 continuance of the Hebrew religion in history. Moses' first two commandments, 'No other God' and 'No worship to any other God,' have successfully brought the attention of the nation to fix its gaze on the Holy One of Israel. The other two monotheistic religions,

Christianity and Islam, also do not tolerate apostasy and idolatry.

4.2 STEPHEN NIELL 203 a) WHY DID THE BHAKTI RELIGIONS APPEAR WHEN THEY DID?

Stephen Neil reasons why the bhakti religions appeared at certain times and took hold of Indian minds with power. He ventures to make a general statement that bhakti \I seems to have been Hinduism's method of defence against other religious systems which threatened to eliminate all that is most characteristic of Hinduism which brings comfort and consolation to ordinary men and women, and that the timing points to the context at that time which needed the bhakti religion to come into being in India. What was the context? He explains as follows:

Hinduism was already old when lainism and Buddhism appeared on the Indian scene. These two great systems may be interpreted as a reaction against Hinduism which had lost itself in endless speculations and no longer provided an answer to the increasingly burdensome problems of human existence. As lainism and Buddhism spread rapidly throughout north India, they must have been felt as threats or a menace to the

203 Stephen Neill, Bhakti of South India and the Bhakti of the Christian in Bhakti, Hindu and Christian (Madras: Christian Literature Society, 1974),53-82. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 115 established Hindu religion's orthodox ways. Something was to be done to hold off this growing menace. There is general consensus about this among modern scholars.204

Neill explains the situation further. The weaknesses of Buddhism is one of the reasons for the appearance of the bhakti religions in India. Buddhism is said to be a pessimistic religion of serenity although joy (metta or muditta) is one of its four basic principles (brahma-viharas). The monk, especially a more austere southern () one has to renounce so much in life that makes human existence tolerable, and sweep away almost everything in religion which men cling to. The bhakti religions assured that the pilgrimage is not endless, that he who seeks will find Him, when all the illusions of existence will be dissolved in the coming of the experience of Nif>vana. These must have been welcome alternatives to Buddhism's lack of God. There is God who can be worshipped; there are also liturgies and rituals that are popular, not impenetrable. The message of deliverance seemed attractive, not perplexing to the ordinary Buddhist house- holder too, who has to go on living in the world supporting the monks (bikkus). While on the side of Buddhist monks and the common people, there was a growing dissatisfaction with their own religion and a need for a change; on the side of Hinduism, allowing the development of the bhakti religions could be seen as the answer to save itself from the menace of Buddhism which was reigning supreme for over six hundred years from the time of the Buddha. 2os

The BhagavadGita, Neill states, is best understood as the culmination of a long process of development. It has a new and simple doctrine showing people how everyone from all walks of life can be religious and advance on the path to deliverance without

204 D. D. Kosambi, Historical Development of the Bhagavad-Gita, in Vol. 1, "Studies in the History of Indian Philosophy" (Calcutta: K. P. Baghchi & Company, 1978),243-266. 205 Stephen Neill, Bhakti: Hindu and Christian, 54. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 116 total renunciation of action in the world as Buddhism taught. Bhakti is, by any count, easier than the Upanishadic Hinduism that seemed to restrict redemption only to the few

Brahmins who could withdraw from ordinary life to follow the path of knowledge

(jnana). But the rest could not do this. All that the Gita required of them was to continue in the world and carry out the duties of their caste. Brahmanism that is not intended for them did not attract them ,as a message of deliverance. The Gita, instead, said that everyone should perform their prescribed duty without expecting its fruit (nish-kama- karma); no one should simply stay away work-less (nish-karma) but rather consider their obligatory caste duty (sva-karma) their privileged duty (kama-karma, sva-dharma). A

Kshatriya, like Arjuna, is taught to fight without hesitation of thought of the final outcome of his performance: Krishna says that he is not bound by work; he can come to the world of Krishna through devotion. 206, 207,208

The change did come by way of bhakti after a long period of struggle. Bhakti could stand alone against both Hinduism and Buddhism: Hinduism's exclusivity of the minority highest class against the majority in the society, and Buddhism's harsh and total renunciation and aridity of practice of the faith. Krishna opened the door of bhakti and said that persons are not bound; all could come to the world of Krishna through devotion; salvation is for the low no less than the high.

206 Stephen Neill, Bhakti: Hindu and Christian, 54: Gita (18. 66; 12.6-12: "Give up all things of law, tum to Me, your only refuge, [for] I will deliver you from all evils; have no care."

207 Stephen Neill, Bhakti, Hindu and Christian, 54 - 55.

208 Kosambi, Social and Economic Aspects of the Bhagavad-Gita, in the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 4. No.2 (Aug., 1961) 218-224: Kosambi develops a theory from an economic point of view that the Gita was written to revive the feudal system to bring more revenue by the impoverished peasants' loyal service to the politically powerful oligarchic capitalist upper class landlords. He fixes the time of the Gita as the early half of the before it became rich and powerful; the Gita was written by the Brahmins for the Brahmins to safeguard their position by accepting the bhakti religion into the Brahmanic religion by synthesis - as the only way to survive. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 117 b) Inconsistencies in the Gita:

Next Stephen Neill points out that the inconsistencies in the text of the Gita have led some scholars to question the unity of the work, which has been overlaid by the addition of elements expressing a more orthodox, Brahmanical point of view. He thinks this is possible because the works of other religions have also grown in exactly this fashion. The view that is held more gel,1erally today is that the Gita is a peaceful work, and the inconsistencies in it are, in reality, the intended part of the poem itself, that everyone should find what he/she needs in what the Gita has intended. Therefore, it is in fact, this flexibility and compromise of the doctrine of the Gita that has ensured its place over many centuries as the most popular of all Hindu classics.209 HoweVer, my question is, as to which is the intended part of the Gita, and which is not.

Neill's greatest Unanswered Question is why there is no uncompromised monotheism.

This is the same question asked by Appasamy or any other serious reader of the Gita:

Why did the Gita not make an assertion when it has reached a high level of personalist theism and a monotheistic understanding of religion? The Gita' s God is not a distant reality but the soul's closest friend and the end of all its desire, in which it experiences an all-embracing-unity. Having reached a high understanding of a living personal God who is accessible even to the least of the worshippers, and having experienced God through

His own revelation of Himself, why did Hinduism not go for a strict monotheism? 210

It only shows that, for some reason, Neill says, this step has not been taken deliberately. Hinduism has always allowed itself to be divided between the impersonal and personal divinities, Brahman and God (Isvara). Bhaktas, who followed the mystic

209 Neill, Bhakti, Hindu and Christian, 53-82. 210 Neill, Bhakti, Hindu and Christian, 56. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 118 path; have been thought of as inferior and a little eccentric, whereas those who followed the orthodox Hinduism, which believes in a supreme impersonal reality that is beyond personality, were considered to be superior. This difference between the bhakti cults and the orthodox religions has made a deep divide between their followers toO. 211 c) Neill asks another question: Why is the Hindu religion in the south different from that in the north? Neill writes that the Hindu religion of the Dravidian South is different from that of the Aryan North because the Dravidians already had their own religion, bhakti, before the Aryans entered India. Nearly the whole of North India follows the Upanishadic

Brahmanism conditioned by advaita of Sankaracharya as the supreme intellectual ,

~ position, whereas in the South, the mystical or emotional oneness with the Supreme God has risen to the level of orthodoxy, and become the faith of the millions.

Bishop Neill, who had lived a lifetime in India and traveled all over the sub-continent and mingled with many groups of religious and ethnic people, thinks that it is this phenomenon of bhakti: the mystical, or emotional apprehension of oneness with the

Supreme God that has become the faith of the millions in the south for many centuries.

This makes the religions and people of south quite different from those of the north?12 d) What made Hinduism not only withstand Buddhism and Jainism but also banish them?

In the five centuries (2 -7 AD), when the two atheistic religions were holding political power in South India, Hinduism not only withstood them, but also caused them both to disappear completely from the scene. The aridity of Buddhism and Jainism was hardly a

211 Stephen Neill, Bhakti: Hindu and Christian, 57. 212 Stephen Neill, Bhakti: Hindu and Christian, 57. Neill was Assistant Bishop of Oxford and lecturer at the Wycliffe College before he became the Anglican Bishop in South India. A scholar in Christian and other world religions and a thought-provoking writer, his books include Crises of Belief, Christian Faith and Other Faiths; Jesus Through Many Eyes. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 119 match against the ebullient Hindu bhakti. Besides, the bhakti movement on a large scale began in India with the Tamil mystics of the South (6th-14th century CE).213 "This Tamil bhakti movement was an impassioned cry against the ossified ceremonial religion of the

Brahmins and the ideal of passionlessness that these three religions shared.,,214,215 Several scholars attribute this powerful rising up of Hinduism in the south to the Tamil bhakti movement that was createp by the ecstatic outpourings and the immense output of doctrines of the earlier generations of the Saivite Nayanmars and the Vaishnavite Alvars, which had met the spiritual needs of millions of people in the south. 216, 217

As sacrifices and rituals became rare in the north, mainly due to the influence of

Buddhism and Jainism, and the Brahmin priests became redundaht; they traveled south and found new patrons in the Tamil country of the Chola, Pandya, and Chera kings who took them in and allowed them to start their religious ceremonies and sacrifices. As a result, Brahmanism started to flourish better than in the north, and drove away Buddhism almost completely, rendering Jainism powerless and reduced in numbers. By Ramanuja's time (l2th century CE), the fourfold Varnashrama-Dharma had become more rampant than in the north, and stayed. Consequently, caste and color caused the failure of

Ramanuja's reforms. Nevertheless, in spite of all this, the Tamil country produced twelve well-respected Alvars and sixty-four revered Nayanmars from all the four castes.

213 Robert S. Ellswood, Bhakti Movement (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1955),85-86. "Bhakti is a Spiritual Path of the early middle ages based on love for one's chosen deity. The soul loses its egocentricity in love for the chosen God. These were the times of both social and devotional protest of the Hindu reaction to Buddhism. During this time the South Indian Hinduism was moving away from the Vedic Hinduism of sacrifices and castes." 214 R. C. Zaehner, Hinduism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1962), 171. 215 H. W. Schomerus translated the Saiva Siddhanta Sastra into German, Der Sa iva Siddhanta, (Leipzig, Lutheran Mission Publication, 1912). He was a Lutheran missionary in India. 216 Neill, Bhakti: Hindu and Christian, 62-63. 217 Dhavamony, Love of God, 2-4. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 120

4. 3 R. c. ZAEHNER

A. ZAEHNER ON PRIORITY OF BHAKTI IN THE GITA

Analyzing Chapter 12 of the Gila, Zaehner shows very clearly, that the Gita prioritizes the bhakti religion over Buddhism by absorbing the typically Buddhist virtues metta (friendliness), karuna (compassion), and abandonment of all thoughts of 'I' and

'mine' (self-denial), which are basic to all Buddhism and giving them their due place in its own theistic system (12.13), and yet asserting that the Buddhist Nirvana cannot be perfected unless and until the Buddhist accepts the and learns to love

Him (12. 14). 218 The same Chapter emphasizes the priority of love in seven verses (14- \ 20) by saying six times that God loves that man, and two times the reason for His love is that he is loyal-devoted and devout (12.17,19).

Although the Gita discusses a variety of doctrines: Sankhya, Buddhism, the

Upanishads, Vedanta etc., it is clear that there is still a central core of teaching that is unmistakably genuine personalistic theism. Theism and bhakti become increasingly clear throughout the Gita and unmistakable in the end of the last chapter where Krishna confirms his love for Arjuna twice, "you are dear to Me" (18. 65 -66). Arjuna's natural eyes, at human level, see his charioteer only as a personal friend; but when he is given a celestial eye (11. 8), and when the veil of ignorance, (avidya) before his eyes is removed,

Arjuna sees Him as God and himself as His devotee. This is the intended message of the

Gita: to reach the loving personal God through love (bhakti). Zaehner writes that as he grew increasingly familiar with this wonderful work,

218 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 329, notes on 12. 13- 4. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 121

It became insistently clear to me that here was a text the whole purpose of which seemed to me to demonstrate that love of a personal God, so far from being only a convenient preparation for the grand unitary experience of spiritual 'liberation' (the moksha or mukti of the Upanishads and the vimutti of the Buddhists) but was also the crown of this experience itself which, without it, must remain imperfect. 219

And yet, although Krishna becomes the manifestation of the One true divine reality, in it, the Gita is not monotheistic in the exclusive sense of the Old Testament or the Qurran. a). ZAEHNER ABOUT THE APVAITINS

Zaehner affirms that bhakti's personal relationship is denied by the Advaitins.

Though every sect of Hinduism tries to make the Gita its own, many sects have openly attempted to eliminate or explain away this remarkable personal expression of bhakti and of the relationship of the bhakta to the Lord. The towering geniuS' of Sankaracharya, the founder of the extreme school of Vedanta's non-dualism, and the greatest dialectician whom India has yet produced, has most authoritatively interpreted the Gita as an expression of his austere advaita philosophy, one without a second.22o

His [Sankara's] Gitabhashya is full of keen argument; but not even the subtlety of a Sankara can conceal the fact that the advaita and the Gita systems are not at one. 221

Simply put, systems, such as Advaita, that do not take into account the personalist elements (theism) in the Gita, cannot reach an interpretation which will do justice to the

Gita's deepest teachings.222 However, some Neo-Advaitins, conditioned by Sankara, harmonize the Gita with the Upanishads and, at the same time, sustain the insights of

Neill and Hill about the advaita while differing in details among themselves, in an effort to circumvent the bhakti part of the Gita.

219 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 3. 220 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 3. 221 Neill, Bhakti: Hindu and Christian. 56. The quotation is from P. D. Hill. 222 Neill, Bhakti: Hindu and Christian, 56. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 122

In his book, Evolution in Religion, 223 Zaehner says that the Neo-Vedantins see

Vedanta everywhere, and what is not reducible to Vedanta, they dismiss as irrelevant and unreal. The emphasis of the Neo-Vedantin, as it is of the Vedanta and also of higher religion in general, is on the individual not the society, nation, humanity, proletariat or the like. The search for the unity of the eternal timeless ground of the human self, Atman which is Brahman is often.a tautology. Self-realization is the goal of life: conquest of death by passing through one's being beyond death and time. For the Vedantin, Brahman is pure Being and therefore unaffected by what goes on in life unlike the Christian God, the God of history. Vedantin 'liberation' is for individual, not for the community or the world. Overwhelmingly individualistic, Buddhism is similar to Vedantism but unlike

Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. 224

c. ZAEHNER ON THREE TYPES OF MYSTIC UNITY

Zaehner writes that there are three kinds of mysticism just as there are varieties of religious experiences: those types of mysticism that have love as the central phenomenon of the whole experience; those that disregard love altogether and express themselves as unity, liberation or escape from time, the phenomenal world and everything that conditions it; and thirdly, those that combine the aforesaid two positions because these sages have experienced both.

Some of the very few who have experienced the third kind of mysticism are the fourteenth century, Flemish monk Ruysbroeck, the Muslim mystic, AI-Junayd of

Baghdad, and on the Hindu side, the author of the Bhagavad-Gita. The latter not only

223 Zaehner, Evolution in Religion, 90-91. 224 Zaehner, Evolution in Religion, 91. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 123 prepares one for the grand unitary experience of moksha of the Upanishads and vimutti of the Buddhists but demonstrates that love of the personal God is the culmination of this mystic experience without which both moksha and vimutti would be incomplete. The return of the soul to Brahman (brahmi-sthitih) or the Buddhist Nirvana is not the final stage or the exact expression of perfect deliverance; only union with Krishna is that final stage. So Krishna supplants ,Brahman both in theodicy and in cosmology and surpasses it

(Brahman) in too. Thus the union with Krishna is the ultimate or final stage of deliverance. Zaehner is disappointed that many modern interpreters of the Gita, especially those influenced by Sankara, miss this important development emphasized by the Gita.225

Stephen Neill brings out another aspect of Zaehner's three mystical experiences: cosmic, inward and theistic. In cosmic mysticism, the human being feels at one with the whole universe, as in the monism of the Upanishads. In the mysticism of inward unity, all the different parts of the individual's own being have ceased to be out of tune with one another and have come together in one single unity. Here the atman within each of us, the inner self (antar-atma) or the inner dweller (antar-yamin) is often unrealized. However, theistic mysticism is where the separate soul feels itself as one with the ground of its own being; this ground is felt and known as a God who is love, and gives of His own bliss to the spirit which enters into complete fellowship with Him: sat-cit-ananda.226

225 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 2-3. Zaehner, in his Evolution in Religion, writes that the man who has been reborn in Christ, must grow into ever fuller being, must 'yield rich harvest.' For Christ is not only the still centre of the soul, the "Brahmi ," the 'fixed, still state of Brahman, of which the Gita (2.72) speaks; he is also the 'power' and 'wisdom' of God (1 Corinthians, 1.24), the sakti andjnana of God. 226 Neill, Bhakti: Hindu and Christian, 56. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 124

This third mysticism, however, has two types: one where the experiencer feels himself absorbed into the great reality without any distinction between the 'I' and 'Thou,' and the other where the unity is of will and desire but there is yet a duality or difference present between the knower and the known (kshetra-jna and the kshetra) or God and the soul.227 In the Gita, we see both types of the third kind of mystical experience of bhakti which means God and the, soul are the same and yet different simultaneously. In the

Chandogya Upanishad, the hidden treasure in the field is God; the 'knower' (kshetrajna) is the human being; knowing is discernment. The problem is that many are a-kshtrajna

(no-knower); however, by the grace of God, the former a-kshetranjas'become kshetra-jna of the field, sell all that they have and buy it with its immortal trea~ure. 228

4. 4 HEINRICH ZIMMER: THE ARYAN HYPOTHESIS

It is Zimmer's contention that the heterodox systems represent the thinking of the non-Aryan peoples of India (the Dravidians), who were overcome and despised by the

Brahmins, but who, nevertheless, could boast of subtle traditions of their own. Jainism is the oldest of the non-Aryan group going back to the pre-Aryan, so-called Dravidian period, which has been dramatically illuminated by the discovery of a series of great Late

Stone-Age cities in the Indus Valley (Harappa, Mohenjodaro and others) dating from the third and perhaps even fourth millennium BCE. Sankhya and Yoga represented a later, psychological sophistication of the principles preserved in Jainism, and prepared the

227 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 2; Stephen Neill, Bhakti: Hindu and Christian, 56-57; and John Carman, Majesty and Meekness, Michigan: William Erdman's Publishing Company, 1994) 65-66.

228 Zaehner, Evolution in Religion, 98: (Chandogya U. 8.3; Gita 13. 1-4). The simile of the knower and known is used in a variety of ways as the field, treasure, Brahman etc. Finally, in the Gita, Krishna says for the first time (13.1- 2), 'He is the knower of the field,' the knowledge of this field, and of every field, and the 'true knowledge.' This is new: He is the 'knowledge of the true knowledge': satyasya satya. Matthew (13.44) has a similar simile of a man selling all that he had, with joy, to buy the field that had a hidden treasure. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 125 ground for the forceful, anti-Brahmanical statement of the Buddha. Sankhya and Yoga belong together, as the theory and the practice of a single philosophy. (a brown man) was the reputed founder of Sankhya; Buddha was born in a town named after

Kapila, Kapilavastu. In general, the non-Aryan, heterodox philosophies are not exclusive in the same sense as some of the Brahman philosophies are, for the former are not reserved to the three upper classes. 229

It was in the paradoxes of the epoch-making Gita that the non-Brahmanical, pre-

Aryan thought of the original Dravidian people of India became fruitfully combined and harmonized with the Vedic ideas of the Aryan invaders. The Gita reflects this kaleidoscopic interworking of the two traditions that had been cohtending for some ten centuries for control and mastery of the Indian mind.23o

229 Heindrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India (New York: Princeton University Press, 1951),60. 230 Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 378. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 126

Chapter 5: MISUSE OF THE GITA FOR CASTE SYSTEM

5.1 CASTE SYSTEM UTILIZED THE GITA

5.2 THE GITA IS AGAINST CASTE

5.1 CASTE SYSTEM UTILIZED THE GITA

We have to start from the origin and development of castes to explain the problems , of caste today. The strength of the Hindu society is structured around the backbone of caste. One's caste, social level and racial purity are inherited together at birth and remain fixed until death and continue into one's own next births and to one's posterity too - without any freedom to move up or down in the vertical hierarchy.231, 232 The system has " not only flourished for centuries and filled the entire Hindu culture, but has also crept into the Christian and other non-Hindu cultures by conversion and marriage.

Most Westerners do not understand the distinction between a class-based and a caste-based society: that the former is only unsocial, but the latter is anti-social. Class is a euphemistic neutral term to hide the harsh offensive realities of caste. Anti-social attitude does not merely divide people into several groups according to color (varna) but obliges each group to have a different way of life (varna-dharma) that leads to isolation and anti- social tendencies and makes mutual cooperation not only difficult, but more often than not, impossible. The perpetrators of graded inferiority and inequality suppressed (and still

231 Katti Padma Rao, Caste and Alternative Culture (Chennai: The Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute, 1995), 45-46. In this Chapter on 'Abolition of Caste as a Principle,' Padma Rao discusses the philosophy of Dr. Ambedkar: a brilliant Barrister, a Cabinet Minister in the first Indian Parliament after Independence, who wrote the 'Charter of the Indian Constitution.' Born of a low caste, he revolted against caste system, converted to Buddhism, and died soon after in a rather suspicious manner.

232 Gail Omvedt, Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste (New Delhi: Sage, 2003), 280: Brahmanism in the last half of the first millennium resulted in a stagnation of at the 'developmental' level and in a fiercely hierarchical caste society that fixed the masses into unprecedented forms of exploitation. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 127 suppress) discontent and hostility of the people against them with deterrent punishments.

All this was done in order that the upper caste could keep its racial purity.

Historically, the caste system began only after the Indo-Aryans from Central Asia settled in India (c.1800 BCE) and divided the society into Aryan and non-Aryan races: those with color and those without color. Next, they graded the Aryan races into three upper castes, namely, the Brahmin at the top, Kshatriya in the middle and Vaisya third and all the original Indian races into the fourth, as the subordinate caste; in order to preserve their racial identity and purity, they used six powerful tools: the Rig Veda, the

Law of Manu, the Bhagavad-Gita, the theory of Karma, marriage within the caste, and deterrent punishments which legitimized racial status and duties ac~ording to their castes.

TABLE: 3

The 42 identical verses in the Rig Veda, Manu sastra and Gita: see footnote below.

Rig Veda (c. 1000 BCE) Gila (c. 300 BCE) Manu (c. 100 CE) Origin of the four castes from God X.90.12 18.47 1.31

svadharma of the castes described 18.41-48 1.92 -119

Better [to do] one's own duty

3.35;18.47 6.66;10.97

Ljj

233 Rig Veda (X. 90.12) is 'identical' with the Gita 3. 35; 18.47, Manu Sastra 1.31, andBr. U: l.iv.15. They speak of Purusha-sukta or the purity of Man. Rig Veda (X. 90. 12) is the only verse in the whole of the Rig-Veda that enumerates the four castes by name and duty. When the primordial man, purusha was sacrificed by the gods, the Brahmin came from the mouth, the Rajanya from the arms, the Vaisya from the thighs and the Sudra from the feet: the above caste names distinguish their duties i.e., the priest, the ruler­ fighter, agriculturist-trader, and the laborer respectively.

The obligatory duties of the four castes are stated 'broadly' in Manu 1.87-89 and 'explicitly' in Manu 1. 92-119, adding that "the Lord assigned only one activity to a servant: serving these (other) classes without resentment." The Gita (18. 41-48) describes the duties of the four castes assigned according to the constituents (gunas) and they are from the nature of things as they are - in Manu. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 128

How and why did the exact verses of the Manu sastra (c. 100 CE) appear in the Rig Veda as the only verse in it about castes (C.1100-1000 BCE), and in the Gita composed centuries

(C.300 BCE-200 CE) earlier than Manu 100 BeE)?

Let us first quote Manu's verses:

From his mouth he created the priest, from his arms the ruler, from the thighs the commoner, and from the feet the servant. Manu sastra (1. 31) . One's own duty, (even) without any good qualities, is better than someone else's duty well done; for a man who makes his living by someone else's duty immediately falls from (his own) caste. Manu sastra (10.97)

The famous Tenth Chapter of the Rig Veda (X. 90.12) repeats Manu (1.131):

The Brahmin was his mouth, of both arms was the Rajanya,made. His thighs became the Vaisya, from his feet the Sudra was prbduced. Rig Veda (X. 90.12)

The Law book of Manu decreed, succinctly (1.87-1.91) and elaborately (1.92-117) that

"Caste system is a division of society into four classes with certain social and religious rights and economic activities to each group" (1. 31; 6.66; 10.97). The Brahmin, mentioned first is born from the mouth of God (purusha), is in the top class of purity, to study and teach the Veda; the Kshatriya born from the arm is second class, should therefore protect society and access the Veda, while the Vaisya, commg third, from the thigh, is to farm, trade and access the Veda. However, the Sudra, born from the foot, was condemned as impure, to be the servant of the three upper castes, not

The Gita 3.35 and 18.47 are identical with Manu 6.66 and 10.97 "Better [to do] one's own [caste] duty though devoid of merit, than to do another's however well performed. By doing the work prescribed by his own nature a man meets with no defilement." (Please see the Table above.) Gita verses (2. 31-37; 4.13-14) are also about the fourfold caste system

Brahmin is different from Brahman the Absolute, and Brammah, the Creator male God: the Brahmin is the highest Aryan caste of priests. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandula1 129 to hear, read, recite or study the Veda, but always be the backward lower class. The Gita puts the onus upon the Absolute God Krishna, who declares triumphantly,

The four-caste system did I generate with the categories of 'constituents' and works; of this I am the doer, this know-[yet I am] the changeless One who does not do [or act] (4.13).

To Brahmins, princes, peasants-and-artisans, and serfs works have been variously assigned by these constitue~ts, and they arise from the nature ofthings as they are (8.41).

We see a progressive insistence on caste duties in these eight verses(18. 41-48), where the Gita dictates the duties proper for the four classes, the Brahmins, princes, peasants-and-artisans, and serfs, in four verses (18. 42-45) to &ttain perfection and joy

(18.46). What is new in 18.46 is that Krishna picks out the performance of caste duty as being perhaps the 'only perfectly acceptable' worship of Himself because He is the one source of the ancient social system, which divides men into the four classes as mentioned above (4.13). To do one's duty (sva-dharma) in accordance with the state into which one is born is better than doing another's duty (para-dharma), conforming to the will of God; therefore, it is imperative that you do what the ancients did in the days of old. 234 Besides,

[you, serfs], doing your proper duty is better because dirty work will not defile you.

This verse (18.47) is the maxim of the Gita which was laid down at a very early stage of the Gila (3.35); duty in one's social station is equal to worship (9.27), which clarifies that doing your 'desireless action' (nish-kama-karma) is part of karma yoga; doing your own duty (svakarma) is your natural right or duty by birth (sva-dharma) whether it is void of merit or involves demerit; to avoid more deaths (cycles of samsara)

234 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, 394, n. Zaehner's notes for 3.35 meticulously informs that the Gita rubs in this maxim again at the end of the discourse (18.47). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 130 by dying within your own duty is better than 'doing another's well.'235 This was used by the elite leisure caste to justify permanent unpaid labor by the low caste feudal serfs.

Thus, the karma theory instilled guilt into the mind of the Sudras that their present miserable status is in fact the result of their own deeds albeit done in their previous lives, and imposed fear in them that more such births would result if they disobeyed the Varna

Laws. Endogamous (marriages within each caste) were ordered to preserve the purity of the higher race. Finally, cruel deterrent punishments such as pouring hot lead into the ear, or making the defaulter tread the streets with sharp bramble branches hanging down his neck, ensured the flourishing of the Varna system. Thus the caste system, kept alive by the Rig Veda, the Gita, the Manusastra, the theory of Karma, endogamous marriages and severe punishments, has succeeded in the breeding of 3000 sub-castes in the 3000 years since the original four.

Svadharma punishment was even worse for those brave Indians who challenged the

Varna system; these were forced out of Hindu society as 'casteless' Panchamas (the fifth group), and were treated as 'slaves,' to do only menial jobs such as scavenging, without showing the least disgust and without expecting any reward except the joy of doing their own duty. They were dehumanized, made poor, called impure, untouchable and ignorant-without rights to live in the village, use the well, the street, the temple or school. They fell from caste for desiring to do the duties of others. 236

235 Zaehner: The Bhagavad Gita, 175, Gita 3. 35. In ethical matters Krishna is not an innovator; in each incarnation He merely re-establishes the old dharma when it is in decline.

Chit Bhavananda, Bhagavat-Gita, 248: changing one's duty mid-stream is perilous because fear of duty will cause many more deaths and births. 236 Falling from the caste for 'doing another's duty' is explicit in almost identical verses in Manu (6. 66; 10. 97), and the Bhagavad-Gita (3. 35). This duty, devoid of any good qualities is inherently inadequate, involving an impure occupation, or duty not done well. India has the scavenger caste even now. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 131

In the Bhagavad-Gita (2. 31-37), Krishna tells Arjuna why he should do his kshatriya-caste-duty and fight the war: he will gain honor and paradise for doing his prescribed duty or reap dishonor and hell for not doing it. 237

Even when Plato speaks about the three classes or types of men, of gold, silver and clay, fit to be kings, philosophers and workers, respectively, his system does not bequeath their duties to their progeny: profession comes according to merit, not birth. People are not mass-produced into four classes by their three gunas. Instead, they involuntarily transmit their genes differently to their children, who could take up different professions at their will, preference, training and capability, with freedom. But, in India, the lower castes still remain low while social change towards an egalitarian ~society is restricted by one caste and its powerful schools.

Caste system in the Gita provokes some vital questions concerning caste per se and the role that the Gita plays in maintaining such an ethically abhorrent system. When a new book was brought to the sages of ancient India, they asked the author certain legitimate questions such as, 'Says who?' 'What is the purport?' 'To whose advantage?'

Who is the intended audience? We too should ask the author of the Gita such questions.

Our first question is 'Says who?' or 'Who is the author?' The author of the

Bhagavad-Gita's religious discourse is anonymous as a direct or indirect word of God.

What is Gita's purport? Is its priority God, bhakti or caste? Who is its beneficiary? Who

237 The Mahabharata epic story tells how Arjuna had to go to hell for not willingly and spontaneously obeying the caste-law. However, since Arjuna had surrendered his will to Krishna to fight as a Kshatriya, he would be born just one more time - as a male in a good Brahmin family so that he may qualify to read the scriptures - and attain moksha. Only a Brahmin man, not even a Brahmin woman, can attain moksha for he alone can learn Sanskrit and have the knowledge of God. But the Brahmin woman has to be a perfect wife in order to be born a Brahmin man in her next birth to attain moksha. So strict and stringent are the dharma of caste and gender. Fear of births intimidated the lower caste men and all women to consent to do their respective obligatory duty. Manu, the author of the Laws was the forefather of the Brahmins. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 132 is its first audience and who the secondary? What is the reason for perpetuating the evil caste system and subordinating a whole nation under the high caste oligarchs? Kosambi's rational and well-documented answers are as follows. 238

Kosamby asserts that it is clear that the Song of the Divine is sung in Sanskrit by the

Brahmins for the upper classes, as they alone could read and write Sanskrit, and only though them the Gita is intended for the lower castes and for all women, who are the necessary target audience: this group of people will get the message about caste and gender duties through the puranas and stories, which were written intentionally in their own vernacular.

Kosambi points out that practically anything can be read into the Gila by a determined person, without denying the validity of the class system. Many have utilized the Gita as the one scriptural source which could be used with dexterity to reconcile the irreconcilable in many different ways, without violence to accepted Brahmin methodology, but draw interpretation and justification for social actions in some way disagreeable to a branch of the ruling class upon whose mercy the Brahmins depended at the moment. The system achieved this unique position by a remarkable interpolation of the Manu-injunctions into the Gita and the Rig Veda; the Gita was systematically utilized by the upper caste in such a way that caste and gender laws are in vogue even today in the whole of India in different garbs and styles. 239 Gail Omvedt too confirms that the final triumph of Brahmanism in the last half of the first millennium BCE resulted in a

238 D. D. Kosambi, Historical Development of the Bhagavad-Gita in Studies in the History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1,246. The four-caste division has been created by Me." And "For those who take refuge in Me, be they even of the sinful breeds such as women, vaisyas and sudras ... " are the oft quoted words of Krishna (4.13; 9.32). 239 Kosambi, Social and Economic Aspects of the Bhagavad-Gita, The Journal of the Economic and Social History ofthe Orient, Vol.4, No. 2(Aug, 1961) p.p. 202-203. See the plagiaristic verses in the Table above. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 133 fiercely hierarchical caste society that fixed the masses into unprecedented forms of exploitation.24o

5. 2). I would believe that if the caste laws in the Gita are interpolations, they are contrary to the very spirit of the Gita. If the Gita did not support the caste system, but insisted instead on its primary truth, viz., the love of God (bhakti), then this truth, bhakti, would abolish caste, and correct the wrongs perpetuated by caste on the entire Indian society.

On the positive aspect, if God's love within the human heart (bhakti) could be applied equally on all irrespective of color or gender, caste would become a gruesome mythology or a folk-lore of the past. We would look forward to that.

If the interpolations regarding the caste system are removed, the Gita would continue as a social gospel. The Indian term, , (crushed) is the modern word for the lowest castes of the caste system, which has imbalanced the whole society by putting one community above all the individuals in the community. This paper anticipates an egalitarian society in India, in which, the term, Dalit, would be deleted as redundant.

s. S. More sees such an egalitarian society as a definite possibility because the social theory of the Gita can be applied against the caste system. He utilizes the allegory of the upside-down 'cosmic eternal fig tree' (15.1)241 to explain the gradation in

240 Gail Omvedt, Buddhism in India: challenging Brahmanism and Caste (New Delhi: Sage, 2003), 280. 241 S. S. More, The Gita's Theory of Human Action, (Delhi: Satguru Publications, 1990), 166. The three principles, 'existence,' 'continuation,' and 'self-satisfaction' are grounded in man's relation with others. The tree is the society, the branches are the community, and downward roots are individuals connected with samsara. The 'Asvattha' fig tree mentioned here is 'Ficus bengalensis,' is a tree that grows sideways into a spreading tree, which puts out strong roots from its long branches into the ground in search of water and nourishment, and supports the tree like pillars. '' is the Peepal tree under which the Buddha found enlightenment. The 'cosmic fig tree' occurs first in the Rig Veda 1.24.7, next in the Katha Up. 6.1 and the Svetasvatara 3.7; and also in the Mahabharata 14.47 and Samyutta-nikaya 1v.160. The Gita borrows the GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 134

Krishna's Theory of social good and individual good, in which the community is more important than the individual and the society more than the community. The wheel of dharma turns for two reasons: the existence and continuation of the society which are for the good of the individual man himself (3.14-16) in relation to the society. Successful existence needs its solidarity, and continuation of the society needs change; change includes adaptation according to changing environment to achieve integrity, order, peace and discipline. As undue solidarity is detrimental to changing-dynamism of the society, solidarity and change should be in balance for the good of man. Man (Arjuna), as a being in the society, is expected to undertake action (war) on account of his relation with other individuals and community. According to Krishna, the mistake ofiArjuna is that he cares more for himself and his Kshatriya community, which is itself on the verge of annihilation due to its undue solidarity at this time, instead of the whole society.

Although it is difficult for Arjuna to accept, Krishna has no difficulty in justifying destruction of the community for the sake of the society which is larger. 242

The simile of the cosmic, eternal, (asvattha) fig tree goes as follows. It is an upside- down tree, whose downward roots from the branches have to be cut with the sword of buddhi, in order to have the whole tree (society) saved from absorbing the poisonous waters of samsara below, in order that the tree will live eternally from its upward roots, which connect it with rain from the blue sky and deathless waters (amrta) from Brahman

(or God).

However, More maintains that this argument must not be mistaken as justifying annihilation of any community as such, but it does justify doing away with any social simile from the Katha and uses it more in line with Buddhism than the Upanishad (Zaehner, Bhagavad­ Gita. n. 361). 242 Mahabharata, Santriparvan, 32.8. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 135

system such as that of the four-caste. Although caste might have come into vogue for

division of labor at a certain primitive stage, it is now threatening the cohesive existence

and successful continuation of the Indian society. More insists that just as the needs of the

individual have to change with changing circumstances of life, the society also should

introduce changes to particular social systems, structures, institutions and modes of

action in order to make its '1xistence and continuation possible, meaningful, and justified

if time and context demand: varna dharma should be abolished for the good of the

society, and this is Krishna's purpose in this avatara.

The following four key verses, (4.7; 4.8; 12.15; 18.66) would support our argument

that Krishna's theory of social justice is against Manu's law of calor (manava- dharma)

because it is lawlessness (anarchy) to the community (4.7); evil (cruel) to the individuals

(4.8); therefore, God will set up the law of righteousness (justice for the whole society)

(12.15). Cruel shrinking away from individuals could refer to untouchability practiced by

the hypocritical high caste (12.15); All the laws that have to be given up would include

man-made Law of Manu (manava-dharma) (18.66); if you would cut off man-made evil

sastras, God will be your refuge against all evils (18.66).

Whenever righteousness withers away and lawlessness arises, then I generate myself [on earth]. (4.7)

For, the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil doers, for the setting up of the law of righteousness I come into being age after age. (4.8)

The man I love 'from whom people do not shrink,' and 'who does not shrink' from them, who is free from exaltation, fear impatience and excitement (12.15) GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 136

Give up all things oflaw, tum to Me, your only refuge, [for] I will deliver you from all evils; have no care (18.66).

I tend to agree, with More, that as varna-dharma (caste system) is not a dharma

Gustice) anymore, but rather an , the Gila uses the principle of avatara, that

"whenever justice deteriorates and injustice rises ("yada yada hi dharmasya gianir bhavati"), Krishna generates himself on earth. We can presume that 4.7-8 would mean that in the present avatar, Krishna would destroy varna-dharma, and replace it with a new democratic egalitarian dharma, (bhakti) to prevent a revolutionary reaction of the crushed. Similarly,12.l5 would mean that Krishna opposes the false, dogmatic, static and ~ absurd notion of the dharma of untouchability that is used to save the purity of the elite.

Further, in 18.66, Krishna, finally gives permission to Arjuna to give up all laws because the emancipated man transcends all laws [even Manu's laws] to achieve his goal of deliverance (God), by depending on God's grace alone. In other words, if you want to save the fig tree (samsara, the whole process of the larger society), it is wise to cut off all its downward roots (man-made laws that transpire births), and preserve the upward roots connected to immortal God (of eternal laws for eternal salvation without births).

In support of his theory, More says, similar to the Gita, the Mahabharata too gives the gradation of actions in terms of preference, as follows: One should abandon the individual for the sake of caste-group, abandon caste-group for the sake of village, and village for the sake of society, and society for one's own self.243 The good of larger sections would culminate in the good of the smaller ones in the long run. 244

243 Mahabharata, sabhaparvan, 55.10. Society is interpreted as the largest social unit. 244 More, The Gita Theory of Human Action, 171-74 GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 137

If India wants to nourish and save the 250 million or more low caste people and the

Dalit people (the crushed) in the interest of the whole society (the upside-down Eternal

Asvattha-Fig-tree 15.1-4), it needs to cut off the roots of the tree (caste laws) that preserve a single minority upper caste community. This is urgent because the creation of a casteless and classless society, the cherished ideal of the Indian constitution, sixty three years old, still remains infantile. Measures taken by the Government to benefit the have been insufficient; protests by reformers such as Dr.Ambedkhar, Mahatma Phule and

Ramaswami Periyar could not eradicate caste; even the Communist Party regimes did nothing much to remove caste. Dalits are losing their patience after twenty five centuries of humiliation and dehumanization; an urgent dynamic social change is needed. 245

. If India does not want another kuru-kshetra war but a dharma-kshetra of justice,

(Gita 1.1), it has to accomplish yet another bloodless revolution as it did in the past century to save India from the British Raj. It is true, complete annihilation of caste could be achieved by passing a bill of freedom, by the combined effort of the whole nation, similar to the demolition of slavery, the apartheid and the Berlin wall. However, it is also true, that caste distinctions will not disappear by a bill on paper or by superficial changes made in the superstructure of caste-culture, but only by letting the Dalits reveal their full- likeness of the humanity of God and their full image of the glory of God, for the Dalits were also created from the heart, mind, mouth, hands and breath of God, certainly not from the foot of God as Manu, the Rig Veda and the Gita tell us.

If the Gita has to be the Gospel of Love and Grace, its teachings on bhakti must be fully used, and its teachings on the interpolated verses of Manu about caste must be

245 Katti Padma Rao, Annihilation of Caste- as a Principle in Caste and Alternative Culture, 39-58 You cannot build a nation or a morality on the foundation of caste. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 138 totally disused. If the wrongs perpetuated by caste must be remedied, the immeasurable love of God in the hearts of people must be fuelled by bhakti that the neighbor would be loved as oneself, irrespective of race, color or gender. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 139

5 CONCLUSION OF THE THESIS

1. THE GlTA LAUNCHES THEISM AND BHAKTl, 2. THE GlTA BANISHES CASTE

5.1 THE GlTA VICTORIOUSLY INAUGURATES THEISM AND BHAKTl

The Gita has a synchronized-twin goal: the superiority of theism over Brahmanism

and the superiority of bhakti over jnana and karma. Accordingly, the Gita lifts high the

personal God Krishna as the only, supreme, transcendent, true divinity, whose love is

accessible (sulabbha 8.14) to people of all classes and genders, by bhakti, which is the

easy, direct, and sure way to the personal God for salvation. Bhakti marga was the exact

need of the time to bring concord between the two discordant margas, jnana and karma. \! The Gita has certainly accomplished its twin goal successfully, placing Krishna as

the Brahman of the Vedas, Atman of the Upanishads, Purusha of the Sankhyas, Brahma-

Bhuta (the liberated man) of the Buddhists, and Nirvana too; now Brahman is God's

womb for His (God's) seed. The carama-sloka (the last sayings of the Gita) sings with

triumphant joy that its mission is accomplished; it sings the ecstatic, open love song of

Krishna to all His bhaktas (18. 64-66); and gives out the last solemn teaching (mantra) of

the guru to His graduating pupil in the Upanishadic style. Unlike the Vedic scriptures that

were locked up from the common people, the song of love is wide open to all.

The Gita does not teach a , i.e., salvation by whatever divinity or

whatever way (4. 11), as Radhakrishnan interprets;246 the Gita does not harmonize

Advaitic Brahman and the personal God, but makes its objective noticeably clear that it is

246 Minor, The Gita's Way, p. 348: Radhakrishnan interprets Gita 4. 11 to mean universalism or "catholicity," with which, even Sankara's interpretation of this verse disagrees: Krishna rewards people differently on the basis of their approach to Him ... people may receive on the basis of their approach, but not all will be granted the goal of the Gita, moksha. This is not Radhakrishnan's exposition of many paths to the goal. On the other hand, it is Krishna's 'Me-Alone' way. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 140 monotheistic: Worship Me alone, 'none other' (ananya 12.6).247 Its one emphatic message is that Krishna, the personal God, is the 'Absolute highest;' He is the

Unmanifest (masculine) beyond the (neutral) Unmanifest Brahman (avyakto-avyaktat- sanatanah 8.20); the more exalted Imperishable Purushottama than the Imperishable

Brahman (15.18), primeval (anadhi), without end () and will never perish

(avinasi) when all else will perish. Krishna, the personal God, claims to be wisdom's highest goal, the One all-highest-way (as I really Am 18.55) replacing the basic

Upanishadic Brahman thesis that Brahman is the one thing that is first, last and the only reality (satyasya-satya). 248

T he question is, if people knew that Krishna is the highest God (9. 23-24, 11.52) and controller of the three basic elements of prakriti's Nature (7. 4-5), why would they worship other, lesser gods? The Gita (Krishna) reasons out the advantage of monotheism succinctly: all creatures follow their own Nature (3.33); when wisdom is swept away by many desires, their inherent Nature initiates their faith in other gods (7.20); but even that instinctive faith comes from Me (7.21); worship of other gods bestows only finite rewards ... ;but whoso loves-and-worships Me will come to Me and have lasting union with Me (7.23). Krishna claims to be that One God who alone is worthy of worship of all.

247 Zaehner, Bhagavad-Gita, 327. Zaehner explains: Despite Krishna's positive encouragement of the faith of people who worship other Gods (7.21, 9.23) because in doing so they are really worshipping Him, it becomes increasingly clear in the latter half of the Gita that worship, meditation and love should be directed to Him alone: 8.14; 8.22; 9.13; 9.22; 9.30; 11.5412.6; 13.10-11. Unswerving loyalty-and-love for Me with spiritual exercise on no other bent, this is "knowledge" (adhyatma-jnanam: notes 13.10, 11, p.337.

248 Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 380: the "Brahman thesis." The basic 'Brahman thesis' comprises all the-pairs-of opposites (dvandva) that proceed from it, whether physically, in the course of life's evolution, or conceptually, as logical distinctions occurring to the intellect coincident with thought. Perceived pairs­ of-opposites reflect the nature not of things but of the perceiving mind. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 141

Thus the Gita is very clear about Krishna's superiority over other gods, and His insistence that if they are wise and want lasting liberation, they would worship Him alone. 'All roads do not lead to Rome,' and all paths are not equally successful.

Unswerving loyalty and love for Me with spiritual exercise bent on no other, this is knowledge ofthe self (adhyatma-jnanam 13. 10-11); the deepest inherent wisdom.

Robert Minor maintains, contrary to most interpreters, and I tend to agree with his interpretation, that the Gita gives little hope for those who refuse to worship Krishna.

Although one has the choice to take any road and end up in any destination (7. 20-23), and although all the three ways, Jnana, karma and bhakti are acceptable, according to

Krishna, bhakti is the best choice for mukti 249 The new player, 6hakti, does not banish the two old players, jnana and karma, but plays with them as the better player, thus supplying all that is needed for the complete man's intellect, action and feeling - to know

God, love God and serve God.

In sum, bhakti yoga is the Gita's preferred way to salvation, as it is easy, direct and sure. Jnana yoga is open only to a few elite who have access to the Scriptures; karma yoga, although open to all, is very difficult, especially, when karma-yogis are forced to do the obligatory caste duty. People have their freedom to choose the pathway they might practice; in the Gita freedom works within the context of devotion, knowledge and non- attached action (12.6_12).250,251

249 Minor, The Gita's Way as the Only Way, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 30, No.3 (Jul., 1980), pp. 339- 354. 250 Minor, The Gita's Way is the Only Way, 351. Some Gita scholars emphasizejnana into their schemes, some exegete that the path of Karma is the unambiguous practical universalistic Hindu message of activism, where action should not be done as a means to an end (fruit) but as the end in itself (2.47); one may be liberated by karma, jnana or bhakti; everyone should work, and non-attached work leads towards mukti. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 142

CONCLUSION: 5. 2: THE GITA IS AGAINSTCASTE

KRISHNA CASTS OUT ADHARMA:

SO, CAST OUT CASTE, THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM, AND DELETE THE WORD DALIT

It is time to end all the three thousand castes of India and all the discrimination and inequality in the Indian society due to them in all these three thousand years, for they are unjust (adharma). In the context of India's economic and scientific progress, caste hierarchy is an anachronism. Even if division of labor of a primitive kind could be justified when the caste system was first introduced, it should have no place in modern

India. The moral law , it was based on, should have been re-expounded, from time to time, by the society, as the world around it was twirling, - as it was do~ by the incarnate God

(avatara purusha) at every age ( yuge- yuge), so that the old unjust systems would be replaced by the society, each time, with practicable, just, new moral laws. (4.8).

When man lived close to the forest, he had the law of the jungle, where might is right; or the law of the fish, macha nyaya, where the big fish swallows the small with impunity. But as humanity attains maturity, its law should also be more mature. But the common problem that confronts traditional societies round the world is that scientific progress takes place side by side with practices of human inequality. It seems that the

Gita is challenging such a situation in its own time, with its renowned doctrine of

Avatara found in its well-known verse (4.8) issuing a declaration to destroy injustice

(adharma) and set up the law of righteousness (dharma). The law of the jungle that exploits the weak definitely violates the Gita's ideals of love and grace. Many live in the midst of castes but do not see the evil generated by castes. An elephant in our living room

251 Ranchan, Revisioning Gila, 102. Bhakti to the personal God is the preferred way of the Gila. However, the Visishtadvaitin devotees combine the Unmanifest Brahman of Vedanta and Personal God of the bhakti religion; others devotees add a multitude of gods, sects and schools. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 143 should be recognized as anarchy and it should be driven away into the jungle, where it belongs. Caste in the human family is also lawlessness, it should be cast out.

In view of the fact that such a symbiotic existence of caste-and-bhakti is clearly seen in the sacred text of the Gita, scholars and religious persons explain away the teachings of the Gita according to their own inhumane social and religious convictions, with apathy, as allegory, typology, metaphor, structuralism, layering of society - unrelated to the nature of suffering- physical, emotional, spiritual, social, economic - in the society caused by fellow human beings 252. It is this heartless indifference to unjust practices that has perpetuated the evils of caste for over 3000 years - making it all the more difficult to eradicate as time went on.

The special way in which the fifty bhakti verses are schematically arranged in the middle six chapters points to the intentionality of the author, while the placement of a smaller number on varna verses in the early or last chapters causes suspicion of a later author. Krishna's commending bhakti at one time and caste duties another time confuses the readers as to which of them is the purport of the text. As caste is tied to rebirths, those who fear rebirths choose to practice caste faithfully than to risk the cycles of samsara .

.Due to lack of understanding or fear, they do not choose either bhakti or caste, but both bhakti and caste so as to have the best of both worlds: Thus both high and low castes end up having both bhakti and caste. Whoever interpolated verses from the Manu sastra into the Gita was ingenious in choosing the Gita as the best vehicle for the task, for it certainly had authenticity, acceptability and a wide, elite and popular readership that

252 Purushothama Billimoria and J. V. D'Cruze, BhagavadGita: a perspective of Text in New Essays in the BhagavadGita Compiled by Arvind Sharma, p. 57, footnotes 14 which refers to M. M. Kothari saying that the allegorical interpretations of Gandhi and Radhakrishnan commend what the Gita condemns [caste], and condemn what it commends [war]. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 144

would spread the news. However, the Gita is a bad choice for this purpose of

interpolation because any intelligent reader can detect caste visibly unlike the universal

love of God.

This paper justifies its theory that caste is extraneous to the Gita.

The legendary divine of India could drink the milk alone out of a cup of milk

mixed with water; but as there are no such to detect interpolations, we have to

churn the Gita to separate its cream from water. Before we start churning, we emphasize

the futility of trying to establish the authenticity of any interpolation unequivocally as no

interpolator leaves his finger-prints, name and intention. Therefore, this paper bases its

claim that caste is extraneous to the Gita, firstly on textual criticisrfi of the Gita itself, and

secondly on wider researches of other literary evidences for interpolations. It attempts to

do this in the spirit of the seeker after truth which is humility without any baseness, an

infinite hope and high fearlessness. 253 a) Textual Criticism:

Just as a professor deduces plagiarism in a student's essay, an intelligent reader can

also suspect interpolation, for caste is a starkly inconsistent element in the consistent

doctrine of universal love of God. So the scholar asks if the Gita was written by a single

author or two - is the Gita an Aria or a Duet? 254 Which is the intruder, bhakti or caste or

their counterparts, theism or Advaitism?

253 S. Radhakrishnan, and Western Thought, (Oxford 1939: Oxford University Press, 1996),358: brahmana prescribed by Sage Vasishta for the disinterested seekers oftruth. I am surprised and pained that Rk says, "If the Brahmin class was found necessary even in those less organized and complicated times, it is much more necessary today."

254 Professor R. Brown, Song of the Lord: Aria or Duet? In Bhakti, Karuna Agap, Ed. Gaicocaea (New York: Birmingham University, 2002). GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 145

One dominant argument is that the author of the Gita is a theist; the Gila as it came from his pen is completely theistic; but a later editor has interpolated passages which are monistic in their trend. However, it is impossible to prove it conclusively. If we were to throw out the passages written by a different hand, which ones would we throw out?255

If bhakti and caste were from the same author and at the same time, the clue would be a pattern in the arrangement of the two elements in the text in relation to each other, which is missing.. There are fifty bhakti verses making a meticulous blue-print for a magnificent building in the mid-six chapters 256 and in contrast, only a dotting of the idea of caste (in 2.33; 3.35, 4.13; 18.41-45) is seen, which makes one search for an explanation for the difference.

Krishna's unequivocal command to do one's caste duty (3.35) and His compassionate, ethical and philosophical concept of grace (12.13-20) are incompatible and contradictory; both cannot be from one pen. It is brilliant plagiarism to introduce

Manu's utilitarian decree as God's command without any explanation.257

The existence of numerous contradicting interpretations of the Gila text raises doubts about a single writer. Two ideas of God and Brahman closely follow each other alternately. In an account of kshetrajna and kshetra in which Krishna claims Himself to be the knower of the field (13.1-3), God's knowledge suddenly becomes a list of virtues, such as asceticism, ahimsa, self-knowledge, philosophical knowledge (13.7-9; 11) which, surprisingly, includes bhakti also among them (13.10). In the same chapter, in verses 11-

255 A. J. Appasamy, Bhagavad Gita, p. 127: he refers to this argument comes from Garbe, which comes from the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. 256 Table 2 on page 23 of this thesis. 257 Kosambi, Bhagavad Gita, in J. of Economic, 203: the contradiction goes unexamined because the victims had no access to the scriptures GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 146

17 Brahman is clearly the Real object of knowledge, while 13.18 comes round to the kshtrajna of 13.3, who is God, and about offering loving worship to Him.. Could all these be from one pen? Did the single author simply bring together opposite points of view realizing their important values but without resolving them into a complete argument? 258

This illustrates an extraneous idea intertwining the coherent thought of a single author?59

Intrusions are done to confuse the basic motive and validity of the text. With hind vision, that is what intrusions have done to the monotheistic assertion of the Gita.

b) References to modern Gita commentators:

In the introduction to his famous commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, Radhakrishnan notes that there are many alterations to the Gita in subsequent tin'ies, discusses Rudolph

Otto and Jacobi's references to interpolations, but sees them as the author's brilliant synthesis of incongruous elements.26o M. Hiriyanna, in his Outlines of Indian Philosophy, speaks of additions and changes by later redactors. 261

Kosambi's states that the initial benedictory stanza, Narayaniya namaskrtya (verse 0 that precedes versel), was introduced to make the whole of the Mahabharata into a

Vaishnava document, which, in 1933, V.S.Sukthankar's text-criticism stripped as a late

258 Appasamy, Bhagavad Gita, 128.

259 Zaehner, Bhagavad Gita, 336: It is quite possible that verses 7-25 are interpolation introduced perhaps at the time when verse 0 which is missing in several manuscripts first became current. This seems all the more probable in that the definition of knowledge or wisdom in 7-11 is totally different from that in verses 2 and 34. The wisdom of virtues in 7-11 is not the same as wisdom in the rest of the Gita, which is direct intuition of the eternal Being. 260 Radhakrishnan, BhagavadGita, 14-15. 261 M. Hiriyanna, Outlines, 15: He uses various terms for interpolations: amended, received additions to it, additions are still being made but original titles are retained, not fully authentic etc GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 147 forgery. Kosambi confirms Zaehner that interpolations such as verse 0 in chapter 13 came into the Gita at the time when 0 verses were first devised.262

Kosambi conjectures that 4.13; 5.18; 9.33 and 13.7-25 could be interpolations. In 4.13

Krishna is the generator ofthe four castes; in 5.18 these wise ones see the Brahman, cow, elephant and dog or outcaste as the same; in 9.33 the base-born, women artisans and serfs born of sinful wombs could.have moksha; in13.7-25 theism -Advaitism are intertwined

As we have seen earlier in chapter 4 of this paper, A. J. Appasamy and Stephen Neill also speak of redactions in the Gita, and contradictions due to them.

K. Kunjunni Raja's paper that he read at the Gita Samiksha conference explains that the extant texts of the Mahabharata and the Gita have beeh critically examined, translated and studied by experts, ancient and modem, at various stages in the history of the text. Belvalker played a big role in attempting to 'unriddle the ' caused by the discrepancies of the texts, a few of which are briefly mentioned below.

Kunjunni says that two texts were available, the Kashmir recension and the Indian vulgate version. The difference between a recension and a version is one of degree: a recension denotes far-reaching alterations in the text beyond the limits of the text and province, and vulgate is the version in common use. The vulgate text used by both

Sankara and Ramanuja contains 700 verses, while the Kashmiri version has 745 verses, and the Old Javanese version 56 more verses. To the Western Indologists, Holtzman,

Hopkins, Garbe, and Rudolph Otto, the text of the Gita was a problematic; their careful study to discover the Ur-Gita (original Gita) led them to finding many strands of

262 Kosambi, Social and Economic Aspects, 200 speaks about the Mahabharata inflations by the Bhrgu Brahmin families and the opposite Narayaniya inflations by the Vaishnava theists. The Bhrgus excluded the famous benedictory stanza (narayaniya namaskrtya) from the critical text while they inflated the needless emphasis upon Parasurama. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 148 philosophical doctrines, some of them mutually contradictory, and believing that the text must have evolved through accretions as a result of interpolations at the hands of various redactors. Garbe's claim to 170 interpolated verses and stratifications have been refuted by Belvalkar. Prof. F. Otto Schrader's research (Adayar 1930) drew attention, for the first time, to the problem of the Kashmiri recension used by the classical commentators263 that it was older than the vulgate; but Belvalkar's examinations disputed this proposition, reversed it and placed the Kashmir recension later and secondary; Prof. T. R.

Chintamani's new research (Madras University 1941), however, showed it was a distinct recension with alterations. Jayatirta says that the structural changes to Gita 6.7 of the traditional text were made by a later commentator, Bhatta Bh~skara of Kashmir to remedy the grammatical defects as the meaning was not clear to him. Prof Gonda's detailed study of the Kashmir readings of the BhagavadGita found that the errors were due to a lack of scholarship on the part of the translator. This 'error,' however, led commentators from Sankara and the Indologists to Radhakrishnan, to debate if the 'self' in this verse (6.7) is the Advaitin Self, the individual self or the theistic God. Belvalker also examined a third recension of the Gita and showed that it did not serve as an important finger-printer on the trail of the Ur-text of the Bhagavad Gita in spite of its fairly old date. The third recension text adds a new stanza, 11.59.264 With all these researches the Ur Gita has not been unearthed. Kosambi's thesis is that the Gita was a new composition, not an expansion of a shorter religious instruction, that a definite expansion has happened centuries later, and that thl? AnuGita in the Mahabharata 14th

Canto (Asvamedha -parva) itself is an inflation.

263 also refers to this Kashmiri recension in his Gita Volume 1. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952) xiii. 264 K. Kunjunni Raja, The BhagavadGita: the Problems of the Text in Gita Samiksha, 161-8 GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 149

Summing up, interpolations to the Mahabharata, which embodies the Gita, have been established by honest researches. Interpolation of caste into the text of the Gita is difficult to prove except by the contradictions it causes within the text. Any interpolation is done for a particular reason. In the Gita, it seems to have been done by a later redactor for the benefit of the highest caste as we notice that the use of caste is vital to its continued existence on top of the entire society, at the expense of the rest. Interpolation of caste into a most trust-worthy religious literature has been detrimental to the cohesiveness, not only of the Gita text, but of the whole of the Indian society. Caste in the Gita is criminal abuse of the intents of the Gita, equal to the unacceptable presence of

II an elephant in the living room; therefore caste must be banished from India forever.

If these caste laws in the Gita are not interpolations, but rather integral to the Gita, the victims of the segregation would doubt the Gita's credibility as the gospel of love and grace. Whether caste entered the Gita when it was first written or later, the victims blame the Gita for their sufferings, and demand democratic justice. Victims cry, but the world does not hear or see. In the interest of the health of the whole society and the wellness of the weaker communities, caste should be eliminated. People say that the situation is not as bad as it used to be but is that good enough? Who will solve the problem - the perpetrator, the law, or the victim; and how? Will this happen within our life-time or would we have to wait another epoch of slow evolution of justice?

Mahatma Gandhi asks how this blot on Hinduism may be removed.

It is necessary for the Hindus to repent of the wrong we have done, to alter tour behaviour towards those whom we have suppressed" by a system as devilish as believe the English system of the Government of India. We must treat them as our blood brothers. We must return to them the inheritance we have robbed them ....We may not wait till eternity for this much belated GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 150

reformation. We must aim to bringing it about within this year. It is a reform not to slow swaraj but to precede it. M. K. Gandhi 265

The above exhortation applies equally to all Indians including Christians, who are bound by caste. We have the answer in the Gita (15.3) and the AnuGita (MBh. 14.47. 12-

14) that proclaim God's permission to take the stout axe of wisdom and cut off the fat roots of man-made adharma laws of the eternal fig tree, the society, which means it is a , virtual war. The tree will not die by such cutting, for it has roots growing upwards reaching God's universal dharma through human devotional love (bhakti), which is godly wisdom. Love is not a naIve Pollyanna but a mother who will do anything to save her child from danger or insult. If ordinary humanity or laws of the .country will not free the " Dalits, it is the duty of all bhaktas to use wisdom's axe of collective, strong, just, democratic methods to wage a revolution until caste is demolished completely and finally

- perhaps like the Berlin Wall, in a single day.

We have to re-call and re-discover the insights of the Gita; which has a message for our context today as it did when it was first written. It has transcendental truths glimpsed in sruti, and broader truths as a smrti applicable to practical, down-to-earth human existential problems in a declining culture. History stands witness to the damaging changes that have occurred to the use of caste laws over time. Arjuna represents the whole society of India; Arjuna should not hide behind allegorical interpretations of what the Gila commends and what it condemns as some revered national leaders have done, 266 but fight an uncompromising war on the battlefields of svadharma and dharma

(dharmakshetra) and re-establish a just society.

265 Louis Fischer, (Ed) The Essential Gandhi, p. 136. 266 Purushottama Billimoria & J. V. D'Cruze, BhagavadGita: a perspective, Gila New Essays in the BhagavdGila, ED. Anand Sharma, 51-77; and n. 140 p. 57: These refer to Gandhi and Radhakrishnan. GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 151

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Thilagavathi (TILLY) Chandulal's Presentation at the Defence of Her Thesis: The Historical Game-Changes in the Philosophy of Devotion and Caste As Used and Misused by the Bhagavad Gita 22.6.2011

Thank you, Dean, examiners and teachers, for the Colloquium today, and for the privilege to be a student at Brock, where both Eastern and Western philosophies are taught under one roof. In ancient India, philosophers held cOlloquia-for-their-own- students, or authors of new-books-or-theories. I'm reminded of one particular colloquium held by the greatest Upanishadic philosopher, Yajnavalkya, about two thousand and five hundred ago, in which Gargi, a woman philosopher, discussed wlth him the origins-of-

'the-warps-and-the-woofs' -of-the-external-world. Today, I feel, I'm discussing the

'warps-and-woofs' of-bhakti in the awesome presence of eminent Tamil sages Kapilar,

Valluvar, , llango and . Thank you for the privilege! I'm awed and humbled.

This thesis is a philosophical overview of the long history of "bhakti-and-caste" as found in the Bhagavad-Gita, and how these two have affected the Indian-society for three thousand years. The thesis construes that the author of the Gita used his work to propagate bhakti; but over time, others have misused it to perpetuate the hierarchical caste system; the bhakti religion integrated people under one God, whereas caste split the society into rigid divisions in the name of God. This essay identifies the 'classical game changes,' which is my turn of phrase, in the history of the bhakti religion: the changes resemble the Copernican-reversal-of doctrine and the re-reversals due to contentions between philosophical ideals and realities. Bhakti is a twin-mystery, a two-way-track of GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 156 love and grace: devotional love of the human beings to God, and the gracious love of

God to human beings. Based on the Gita's textual information, my paper back-wheels into the distant past before coming to the present times visioning its hopes for the future.

My thesis is that the purport of the Gita is bhakti. The Gita's anonymous author, whose pseudonym is Vyasa, which means "Composer," most efficiently reveals his theme, bhakti, by his classical methodology, elegant composition and creative ability, which have made his opus magnum, a work-of-art and a most-readable book. The Gita has become the best-loved Hindu classic for at least six good reasons:

1). The Gila was the first philosophical religious text on bhakti in the history of .

2). The Gita's bhakti religion was the first religion to open its gates of love freely to all people of all classes, all castes and both genders of India: societal active involvement, pra-vrtti.

3). Bhakti is a unique personal path to a personal-God with direct access without any intermediary-human-priestly agents.

4) Bhakti is the easiest path (sulabbha) to attain liberation from the 'cycles of birth' because, unlike the Paths of Knowledge and Work (jnana and karma), bhakti does not require a) the Knowledge of the Scriptures, which were denied to all but the upper classes; or b) the hard disciplines of yoga exercises, meditation, asceticism, or caste­ duties set by Manu's 'man-made social-laws,' the 'smrtis.'

5). Besides, the Personal God says, His "Name" is Sulabbha, he is "easily found," more easily

6) than the Absolute Brahman of the Upanishads, who has "No Name and No Form." GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 157

Thus bhakti is the easy, direct, sure path of loving-devotion to Salvation, moksha, through a loving personal God.

The birth-place of Bhakti tradition is claimed to be South India, the banks of the river Kauvery (incidentally where I was born), from where it spread all over India through other languages and texts. The Tamil country is the birth-place of the Alvars such as Ramanuja and the,Nayanmars such as Appar, whose melodious sacred bhakti songs have reverberated over the whole of the Tamil Country from the fifth century AD for sixteen centuries.

The second chapter establishes the backbone of my argument, namely, that bhakti is the priority of the Gita, using the Gita-itself as internal-evidence~ The Gita has over 45 verses on bhakti - out of a total of 700, which is a significant 6. 5 %, and each verse uses the word bhakti 1- 4 times. Wherever the words jnana and karma occur, they're often used in comparison with bhakti as "it is wise to be a bhakta" or "bhakti is wise karma. "

As for the plot of the composition, Vyasa uses his 18 chapters ingeniously and strategically: eliminating all the rival philosophies of his time in his first six chapters, raising a cumulative bell-curve or pyramid or temple in the middle-six-chapters with the bricks of bhakti verses, and concluding his book, like a detective novel, with the disclosure of the mysterious hero (God), and His secret message to His beloved devotee, the bhakta, "I love you very much." This Grandfinale happens in the very last chapter, in its very last verses, called the carama-sloka of the Gita.

The cap-stone of the pyramid in the middle section of the Gita is Chapter eleven, which presents God with great-pomp-and-fan-fare, in the gigantic-dynamic cosmic four dimensional vision, and God reveals that He 1) Krishna, is the Supreme Absolute One GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 158

God 'over and above' the 'Real of the Real' (satyasya-satya)Unseen-Absolute-Brahman­ of-the-Upanishads; 2) that Theism is the New type of Religion, and 3) that bhakti is the

New-Path to that One-God by ananya-bhakti, monotheism. Such is the grand entry of the monotheistic second theism of Hinduism, in contrast to the first-theism of many Vedic gods and numerous sacrifices.

Another significance, of the Gita's methodology: Vyasa uses the well-known ancient-Indian-methodology of Purva-paksha-Siddhanta, which first recognizes the existence of the other points of view, next disproves them, and then makes an exposition­ of-its-own-theory as the Philosophy-of-Reality that transcends all-previous-points-of­ view. Thus Vyasa puts the rival theories of Buddhism, Jainism, Sdnkhya and Vedanta on their heads and turns them around before modifying them, absorbing them and transcending them. Thus the Gita's Monotheism transcends Brahmanism, and its

Salvation transcends Buddhist Nirvana by inclusion and assimilation.

In the third chapter of the thesis we meet two ancient giants of Hinduism, namely,

Sankara and Ramanuja, and two modem giants, Tilak and Gandhi, who interpret the Gita in four different ways.

Sankara elevates Brahmanism chiefly against Buddhism, Jainism, Atheism

(Carvaka) and also theism; Ramanuja, coming 300 years later, refutes Sankara proclaiming the supremacy of bhakti to a Personal God above reverence to Brahman. We witness Sankara's most passionate polemic of Advaita, and Ramanuja's powerfully fervent rebuttal of Sankara with his Visishtadvaita. Sankara logically disqualifies the Gita as a sacred scripture, while Ramanuja elevates the Gita as the most worthy sacred

Upanishad, which unveils the secret-Knowledge that opens religion and social dharma to GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 159 all people of all castes and all women including Brahmin women and Brahmin men defectors by Krishna's own direct orders to set up the Law of righteousness and to destroy all evil laws (4. 3,4, 7-8).

The two modern giants of Hinduism, Tilak and Gandhi, interpret the Gita as karma­ yoga (the Doctrine of Works), for the same specific-purpose-of-regaining India's freedom by two different-innovative-ways, Activism and Non-Violent Action (ahimsa).

The fourth chapter of the thesis brings the critiques of four-modem-commentators of the Gita: Bishops Appasamy and Neill, and professors Zaehner, and Zimmer, who raise thought-provoking-questions on the Gita such as why Hinduism dropped the Gita's insistence on monotheism, why South-Indian bhakti is stronger th~n northern bhakti, and reflections on Mysticism, Advaitism, and the Aryan-Hypothesis.

The final or the fifth chapter of the thesis argues that the uppermost caste misuses the 'theory' of the three gunas' or the three innate human Natures, purity, passion and passivity (sattvika, rajasa and tamasa), to exploit-and-suppress the three-lower-castes, the-casteless-untouchables and the tribal people, and that this teaching-of-castes in the

Gita completely contradicts the-egalitarian and universal religion of bhakti which the

Gita-itself-proudly inaugurates. Therefore, this-thesis-maintains that the 'verses of the

Gita on castes' could not belong to the Gita but originated from the pen of a later interpolator, who is a-likely beneficiary.

The conclusion of the thesis has two parts: In the first part, on the basis of textual evidence, I argue that the Gita' s twin-purpose is to introduce the Personal God and the bhakti religion: Personal God is superior to the Absolute Brahman, and bhakti is superior GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 160 to jnana and karma, knowledge and works, which are, however, useful for the practice of bhakti. Bhakti passes through historical-game-changes towards its goal-of-monotheism.

Secondly, I argue that caste is not a theoretical abstract construct but a real historical multilayered social structure of races with a fixed vertical hierarchy rationalized and legitimized by orthodoxy. Since according to the Gita, Krishna comes in every avatar for the protection of dharma, to destroy unjust laws, and to establish social justice, it is only right to cast out the man made caste law of Manu and 'delete the despicable words-"Dalit," "Harijan" and "Untouchable" from the. entire Indian dictionary. The word "Dalit" means "crushed;" "Harijan" means "children-of-God," an unfortunate name that Mahatma Gandhi gave to the marginalized ~people to replace their former name "pariah untouchables," which presently identifies them as "Harijan­ untouchables". Since all human beings are created by God, as children of the same

Father, we're all Hari-jans. Hence, no one is untouchable or Dalit.

Three points in closing: Firstly, without personal ill will or prejudice against the upper caste, this thesis reviews bhakti and caste in the context of the Gita's love of God and social equality, and reflects on them as relevant to our own time.

Secondly, this thesis is not a Christian apology or defence, but rather, it brings to light a few underlying linguistic and exegetic comparisons and contrasts between the two

Great-World Religions, mostly in the footnotes, hopefully without distracting the reader from the thesis proper. I treat the body of my thesis with academic and philosophical neutrality; through my Christian comments I build personal bridges to connect with the great truth values of the Gita, and try to evolve a fusion of the horizons of our heritages in the hope that they will throw light upon each other and enhance our understanding of GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 161 each other. As I have chosen the difficult task of reviewing the sacred text of another religion, I have assumed the risks of being criticized by the Hindus as favoring my own religion, and being judged by fellow Christians as doing the improper task of praising the good of another religion. I have endeavored to be neutral; I am humbled by my own inadequacy, but I'm enriched by the challenging experience.

Thirdly, May I make, a plea to the Dean of Humanities and the Department of

Philosophy of the Brock University to fund a research unit of Philosophy? Since Brock is the only University in the whole of Canada to teach Eastern and Western philosophies under one roof, it may be appropriate to name it the "Kapila Research Centre of

Philosophy" in honor of sage Kapila (or brown man), who gave us "the Sankhya system of philosophy that pervades many eastern philosophies, and also in honor of Dr. Ric Brown who teaches Sankhya with great devotion.

Thank you.

(Thilagavathi (TILLY) Chandulal) GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandulal 162

grace, 8,9, 12, 15, 17, 19,21,23,32,33,36,38,39, A 42,43,55,56,57,58,61,62,63,69,71,75,77, 88,90,91,92,95,96,97, 110, 124, 136, 142, 145, i\gape, 17,29,66,73,151,153 149, 156 akshara,6,27,49,94 ananya bhakti, 22, 33, 113 I i\ppasamy,7, 110, 111, 112, 113, 117, 145, 146, 147, 151, 159 immanence, 41, 89, 90, 96, 113 ARYAN HYPOTHESIS, 124 integrated person, 70, 107 asceticism, 13,85,104,145,156 athlete of the spirit, 26, 69, 72,107 attachment, 25, 35,56,59,67,70,105 J attachments, 34, 56, 107 jnana,6,16,20,21,22,32,33,35,36,52,59,60,66, 67,68,69,74,76,78,81,82,83,85,86,91,102, B 105,108, 116, 123, 139, 141, 156, 157, 160 Bhakti yoga, 36 Brahman still, 33 K Brahman-i\tman equation, 6, 8 knower, 80, 84,124,145 Brahma-sthitih, 33 knowledge, 18, 19,21,24,26,30,33,40,42,54,66, Brahmin, 2, 10, 13, 14,30,50,62,79,85,87,96,101, 69,73,79,81,82,83,84,85,88,89,90,91,92, 103, 108, 119, 127, 128, 131, 132, 144, 146, 159 93, 100, 101, 110, '116, 124, 131, 140, 141, 145, 146, 160 \ c kshatriya,46, 101, 131 CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, 23 compassion, 9, 21, 23, 63, 64, 95, 120 L liberation, 6, 10, 12, 13,20,21,23,29,33,64,66,69, D 70,71,73,74,76,83,88,90,100,102,121,122, 141, 156 Datits, 137, 149, 151, 152 love song, 139

F M fig tree, 133, 134, 136, 149 margas, 61, 139 flickerless flame, 32 meemamsa,5 four margas, 24 moksha, 10, 12, 13, 18,27,33,36,65,71,74,77,81, 86, 102, 104, 105, 109, 112, 121, 123, 131, 139, 147, 157 G mystery, 18,20,21,23,24,38,40,41,42,43,44,46, game changes, 155 47,53,59,155 Gandhi, 18,62,78,82,97,98,99,103,104,105,106, Mysticism, 8, 112, 152, 159 107, 108, 143, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 158, 159, 160 N Gita a, 44 God, 2, 3,4,5,7,8,9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17,20, Neill, Stephen, 153 21,22,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34, Nirvana, 20, 21,26, 31, 33,48, 52,64,69, 71, 72, 76, 35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47, 115, 120, 123, 139, 158 48,49,50,52,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63, 64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76, 77,80,81,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92, o 93,94,95,96,97, 102, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111, orthodoxy, 78,87,97,118,160 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, outcaste, 29, 147 123, 124, 127, 128, 129, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144, 145, 148, 149, p 151, 152, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160 gods, 1,2,3,7,8,12,13,14,16,22,24,25,27,28, pasya, 44, 45, 46, 47,48, 50,52,53,94 34,35,36,42,44,46,48,56,57,87,108,113, polytheism, I, 25 127, 140, 141, 142, 158 Prajapati, 2, 9, 111 GITA: Game-changes in Bhakti and Caste: Thilagavathi Chandula1 163 prapatti,22,90,91,92 prasada, 9, 12, 17,23,32,38,57,71 u purusha, 2, 7,8,9,32,43,46,47,50,51, 76,95,127, Upanishadic, 4, 5, 9, 11, 13, 19,24,28,38,55,63,65, 128, 142 76,77,83, 116, 118, 139, 140, 155

R v Radhakrishnan, 17, 18,40,41,53,56,64,90, 139, Varuna, 1,2, 12,64, 110 143, 144, 146, 148, 150, 153 Vasudeva, 74, 81, 84 Ramanuja, 14, 17,24,69,72,73,79,80,82,83,84, Vedanta, 43,44, 76, 79,80,82,84,86,88,97,120, 85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97, 121, 122, 142, 151, 158 101, 102, 113, 119, 147, 150, 157, 158 Vedantin, 11,74,83, 122 Vedic period, 2 vimutti, 121, 123 s Visvarupa, 33 salvation, 10,20,21,23,26,30,32,34,37,42,50,55, 58,59,64,71,81,88,90,91,96,97,102,116, w 136, 139, 141 Sankara, 11, 17,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87, warriors, 51, 52, 57 88,90,92,93,94,95,96,97,100,102,112,121, wisdom, 10,20,22,27,32,33,36,41,42,57,59,60, 123, 139, 147, 158 67,68,69,70,73,78,106,107,123,140,141, Sanskrit, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 19,32,40,44,63,64, 146, 149 76,96, 105, 106, 113, 131, 132, 150, 156 works, 10, 16,23,28,30,34,36,55,58,61,70,91, sastras,49, 135 95,111,117,129,141,160 satyasya satya, 8, 124 worship, 3, 9, 13, 17, 21~22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 34, sthita-prajna, 106 35,55,56,57,85,88,96, 110, 111, 113, 129, 140, Sudras, 101, 130 141, 146 svadharma,49,63,67, 127, 150 svakanna,49,63,129 y T Yajnavalkya, 4, 6,155 yogin, 20,21, 27,69, 72 Tamil, 7, 15, 16, 18, 19,40,68,77,87,96,99,106, 119, 150, 155, 157 terror, 43, 53 z Tilak, 18,64,78,79,82,98,99, 100, 101, 102, 103, Zaehner,8, 11, 13, 16, 17, 18,24,25,26,28,29,30, 104, 150, 151, 153, 158, 159 31,32,34,35,36,37,40,41,43,47,49,60,61, transcendent, 9, 35, 59, 64, 70, 76, 81, 96,113,139 69,72,73,80,81,83,84,87,90,92,94,107,108, transcendental, 69, 150 119,120,121,122,123,124,129,130,134,140, 146, 151, 154, 159 Zimmer, 3, 4, 61, 76, 124, 125, 140, 154, 159

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